Nova Terra turning a new leaf
by MekmekAU
Summary: Storyline takes place after WOL and HoTS but before the events of LoV. Entirely non cannon but tries to remain true to most aspects of the Lore. Feed back is always helpful c: My footnotes are provided at the end of every chapter. Please let me know if you would like the story to take a certain direction, it's a very community driven story line.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue** (It's a long prologue, but I think the story needed it, not sure)

With Mengsk dead, and no clear leader willing to immediately step into his place filling the role of emperor of the Terran dominion, human civilization as we know it in the Koprulu sector is in shambles. With the Zerg focusing their attention away from the Terrans and entirely towards the Protoss, it gave the opportunity for mankind to rebuild itself thus; Efforts to serve and protect the dominion had since been reverted towards rebuilding mankind and preserving man's way of life. Rising up from the ashes like a phoenix and living up to the Terran saying "We're too dumb to die, a smart species would have given up ages ago".

November "Nova" Terra, once arguably humanities best chance against the Zerg and furthermore argued the most powerful Ghost in existence making her arguably the strongest singular human being in the known universe has gone quiet. Due to her status, the only individual Nova took orders from were from Mengsk himself and with his death she was left with nothing, no immediate purposes in life. She fondled with the idea of becoming a freelance assassin, earning wages through killing targeted individuals throughout the galaxy but she had felt that the act of killing people without the authority of a superior figure and purely for self-benefit would put her in a position no better than a Spectre, the individuals she was last assigned to track down and annihilate.

So instead, Nova decided to try and live a "normal" life, which came with great difficulties such as having next to zero funds as all her wages were sought after directly from the Ghost academy itself and expenses paid for by the private financial sector which had since been wiped out on Tarsonis. Furthermore her Psionic Index rating of 10 made it incredibly difficult, almost unbearable to be in open public with a large amount of people around her, she needed a residence with secluded access with not many people around her. Nova had also decided it was better now than never to try and form what she called "relationships" with people which may or may not include the idea of dating. This didn't sit well with her, her whole life she relied on frequent memory wipes to deal with the thought of making wrong decisions and now with seemingly all her memories coming back to her with her exposure to Terazine made it all the more difficult.

However, Nova wasn't alone; before going about searching for a new life she had decided that it was a good idea to meet with old friends, persons she knew was still alive, there wasn't many other individuals she knew that were still alive but one of them just so happened to be Delta Emblock. Delta was a ghost with the ability to essentially dream about what is going to happen, particularly about individuals that are close to her or her as an individual. Delta was still in her younger teenage years, and to make things simpler her status remained as Nova's surrogate daughter, the age difference wasn't too huge of a gap as nova was also only in her early twenties. Delta too was searching for a normal life style, away from being a Terran Ghost Assassin even though it had been what they were trained to do virtually their whole lives. Delta has a very bubbly and cheery personality, much the opposite of Nova who took a very long time to form a bond with anyone let alone feel warm and loving towards said person.

Then, inevitably, there is you, you're a hardworking and by all stretches of the imagination a "normal" guy, absolutely nothing special about you other than the fact that you grew up in a middle class family and those were far and few between in your world. All your mates you grew up with, your friends at school were all from mixed backgrounds, not that it mattered to you since they were just your friends. You have been on all of one date and your luck with Girls was seemingly at an all-time low, you think you're a pretty nice guy but clearly no girl see's you for what you think you are. But it didn't really affect you, getting the cold shoulder by girls became a regular occurrence, so much so that you became slightly sexually oblivious. You were a single child, your parents unlike many others were both still alive and you were in close contact with them every day, in fact, you still live with your parents in your early 20's, a sight rarely seen in your worlds modern day society. Absolutely nothing exciting happened during your life time thus far, with the most exciting thing that's happened to you being graduating high school from your local place where your grades weren't anything too astonishing. You were sheltered to the harsh realities that were occurring outside of your world, you knew the presence of the Zerg and the Protoss but weren't too interested in them, a few of your friends had left to join the Terran Marines, to which you thought was insane but understood their decision and accepted it. You were content with a 9am to 5pm job, day in and day out earning your daily wage and contributing to society. You were in all aspects of the word, normal as you could be.

You manage to cross paths with Nova one day at a local bar close to both your houses, and the story ensues.

It was a fairly warm night out, fairly low humidity, warm breeze for this time of the evening when you and the boys decided it was a good idea to hit the pub for a beer or two and then head from after a long day of football. As time passed and the hours grew later into the day more and more of your friends had decided to head home for the night soon leaving you by your lonesome self at the pub, you sat there by yourself by the bench on a barstool with your eyes fixated upon a screen showing the local news when she walked in and sat a seat apart to your left. She was absolutely beautiful, blonde hair with a very long pony tail which reached all the way down her backside, her layered bangs fell down either side of her face effortlessly and in between them, lay a pair of emerald green eyes which seemingly shone even in low light conditions. Not that any of that mattered because your eyes were fixated and glued to the screen to the top right hand side of your vision.

As time went on only when she called out for a bartender to receive no response did you call out in order to get his attention did you notice her very existence. Upon first glance you noticed what she was wearing more so than her face or any other trait about her. Nova was in her hostile environment suit minus the armour plating she normally wore on top of the suit and the Mobius reactor. In your eyes, first you thought she was "overly dressed" for the occasion but you weren't too fast to pass judgement on what or why she was wearing what she was wearing. To Nova, what she was wearing was fairly "normal" in that she would normally be seen on board ships or military bases – installations wearing what she was wearing, not realizing it was a little bit inappropriate for civilian or built up areas.

Nova could read the minds of everyone in the room, the ones that did notice her generally noticed her figure and stature, generally followed up by what they really wanted to do to her in bed behind closed doors, but when she read your mind, you were solely focused on something else about her. Nova found you interesting in particular and was puzzled by what emotions were going through your head as it was definitely a mix of interest and fascination as well as another agenda which didn't involve getting into a bed and turning out the lights. When Nova served alongside marines, typically the other thought they had on their minds was fear, knowing that Nova could read their minds struck fear even into her superior officers whom she was serving with or assigned to, Nova was so powerful she could read through the minds of people even while wearing psi-screens which were specific hardware designed to prevent psionic individuals from reading their minds.

Nova upon receiving the attention of the bartender and placing her order tilted her head back towards your general direction so as to make subtle eye contact, she grinned with her lips and her cheeks lightened to a light pink colour on her pale skin which could easily be seen. You immediately dart your head back forwards upon realizing she just caught you staring straight at her, thoughts go through your head, "oh my god, she saw me staring straight at her", "she probably thinks I'm a creeper". Nova read his thoughts and thought it was cute that you were stressing out over making eye contact and proceeded to move closer to you, sitting on the stool right next to yours on the counter right beneath a low-hanging light fixture.

Nova sensed the amount of stress and embarrassment you had going through your head and knew she would have to start the conversation, she remembered what Delta had told her as words of advice and start with small talk, like "So what are you doing here". Nova thought it was overly cliché but since nothing else came to mind decided to try it anyway. "So what are you doing here" with a smile on her face as your head was still fastened forward trying to not make eye contact with her, you were shocked by the fact that she had managed to move a stool closer to you without you even noticing, but given the amount of other thoughts that were going through your mind it was probably the least you had on your mind at the time.

"I-I- uhh I'm just having a few drinks" you muttered out of your mouth, your lips were jittering and both palms were held firmly to your cold drink that had barely been drunk. Nova thought to herself, "This really didn't break the ice, he's still nervous, if anything he's more nervous now than he was a moment ago when I was sitting over there", following up with her futile attempts at small talk and going down a mental list Delta had prepared for her she decided to ask "So what's your name" as warmly as she physically could with a semi-forced smile. You were shocked initially, you tried to move your head towards her general direction but could barely move at a snail's pace towards her and this time with even more jittering to your words mumbled out "W-william" but then followed by "But my friends call me Will!" with confidence and clarity. Nova read his mind clearly, but she didn't even need to read his mind to know he was lying about his friends calling him Will, but she went with it anyway for the sake of conversation. Oh okay she exclaimed, well my name is November, but you will call me Nova. You read that quickly over your head and realized she said will and not can, she had made it apparent to not call her by the former and strictly by the latter. You reached back towards you drink as the small talk between you continued, but your mind was focused solely on her and as such your hands slipped and missed the drink entirely, toppling the bottle over pouring the contents all over the counter as you suddenly dart your head forward realizing what you had done and quickly attempt to place the bottle upright. Someone at the bar yells out "Someone call a Taxi for this guy here!" but it didn't faze you and continued to try and make small talk, finding things to talk about with her. Nova thought to herself, perhaps I should offer to buy him a new one? To which she thought twice about it and figured he was probably reaching his limit as it was. Then it struck her, do I really care that much about him? Is that what liking someone all about, caring for their safety? Thinking back to all the times Delta was telling her about tales of true love and affection and the time she was briefly in a relationship with Tosh.

An hour or two had passed, drinks were had by both parties and now you were beyond tipsy but by no means drunk, Nova on the other hand here had quite a bit more to drink than you had expected her to over the course of the time spent with her. Nova thought to herself that she had made her intentions quite clear and that she intended to befriend this individual but this is where her training ends, Delta had left her on a cliff edge and said that only you can decide as to whether or not he's worth keeping around or not. Nova was indecisive for the first time in quite a while, not sure as to whether or not they should remain in contact with one another, she cared about him and she liked him as a friend at this point with the potential to become much more than just friends but wasn't sure if the feelings were reciprocated on his part. Upon reading his mind she wasn't so sure either, he was just as indecisive about it as she was, but she stuck to her guns and waited it out, knowing that he should be the one that decides whether or not they had become friends or not. Half an hour had passed since the last she thought to herself and the bar was winding down as it was close to closing hours, time and space had lost her and she realized it was substantially later than she anticipated, then it struck her as to whether or not there were enough leftovers from last night's dinner for Delta back at home.

You notice a changed expression on her face, a worried one which had come suddenly onto her face from a gleeful and cheery one just moments ago. Is there anything wrong Nova? As she explained what was on her mind you decide it was best for her to go home to at least check up on Delta. You realize neither of you are in any particular position to walk home alone and proceed to ask her whether or not it would be okay if you walked her home. It is with this thought that you remember that you should have called home about an hour ago if you stay out late. Nova embarrassingly says yes, her now completely pink cheeks turned red when she said yes, but before leaving she needed to quickly use the restroom which coincided perfectly with what she knew he had to do. You quickly dart out of the bar and make a phone call home "Yes Mum, I'll take care of myself, No I'm not hanging out in the street, I'm taking a girl home and I'll be home right after" you abruptly end the phone call home as your mother wholeheartedly lets out an "Awwww!" which deeply embarrasses you, even more so when she does it in public and not just over the phone.

As she exits the bar it quickly comes to your attention as to how she manages to relieve herself with the hostile environment suit on. Nova brushes him off and bluntly tells you "Don't even ask, I'm not telling" rolling her eyes in the process. It's now that you realize that she can read your mind, that, or your so drunk you don't even realize your saying things. Nova turns back and ushers you to follow her asking "Didn't you want to take me home, come on!" to which you pick up pace and try to catch up. It's only now that you realize that she is indeed fairly tall, there weren't any heels on her boots but even still she was just a tad taller than you were to which amazed you considering you hadn't met many girls as tall as you were as most people came from middle to lower class families faced the issue of stunted growth due to poor nutrition and diet. It only became apparent now that you had not yet covered where she was from or what she did as her job but now was not the time to be asking, it would have to be saved for another day. Nova sensed the amount of questions which suddenly filled your head and knew at the very least you showed quite the degree of interest in her, to which she didn't quite know if she was fully ready or committed enough for a relationship just yet.

A year had passed and needless to say things had progressed between you and Nova, and now Delta, bonds had been formed, understandings were made and not everything was perfect and right in the world, both on their planet and throughout the Terran dominion. Valerian had been sworn in as the new emperor, as the direct heir to the throne after his father Arcturus. Valerian was young, fresh and had new ideas for the Terran dominion allowing a greater deal of free speech to be had in his rebuilding empire. Tarsonis was still in ruins, 2 billion people had to be buried which instead meant that mass incineration of the surface of the planet, reducing the surface to ashes and melting the ruins of old buildings and towers into ruins. Terraforming of the planet had begun once again, rising up from the ashes would be the new capital of the Dominion.

It was 10 AM with the brightness of the sun seeping through the curtains and onto the bed in which you were laying in. Nova was snuggled underneath your arm with her head placed comfortably on top of your chest under the blankets. It was the middle of winter and the sun was still rising in the sky. It didn't take much to wake up Nova, she wasn't a deep sleeper and could be awoken by as much as a movement of feet on the bed. Nova found this trait about her particularly annoying as it lead to being very easily awoken but luckily for her she found it fairly easy to fall back asleep in your presence. Nobody else was awake yet, Delta was asleep in her bed on the other side of the room but it took a lot more to wake her up. Lifting up the blanket slightly and ducking your head under the sheets you whisper into Nova's ear that you're getting up and making breakfast, to your surprise she was semi-awake already and gently nuzzles your neck and whispers "Thanks" and rolls off your body. You quietly and gently try to get out of bed without making too much noise and exit the room trying to not wake up Delta, walking right past her bed.

It was pancakes for breakfast this morning, as you turn on the holo-projector to see the latest news from the newly reformed UGN on New Tarsonis. "The rise of the Unified Democratic Republic of Man" was today's headline, as it showed a protestor waving banners which said "Down with Teeps!" shouting it and others around him chanting it with enthusiasm. The camera panned to one protestor who linked the fall of Tarsonis to Kerrigan, similarly another PI 10 who went rogue and lead the Zerg invasion against Tarsonis and slaughtered billions of Terran lives across the sector. It was only now that you realized the pancakes were burning to your disappointment, pulling out the burnt ones and putting more batter in while you were opening windows to let out the burnt and pungent charred smell which now wafted it's way throughout the residence which woke up Nova to whom got out of bed and rushed downstairs to find you making pancakes.

You managed to burn pancakes Will? Nova said condescendingly, you replied still better than yours with a smile on your face to which she got flustered at and was about to reply when she saw the holo-projector and saw the headlines. Nova was deep down concerned with how large and how many worlds the UDRM's members were found on, with their attacks in recent months becoming more and more violent and daring. Nova thought to herself, last week they planted explosives near the ghost academy and left a 10 meter deep crater killing countless of civilians in the process as well as disrupting ghost training. You notice a very concerned look on Nova's face watching the holo-projector, finishing up the last batch of pancakes you come up from behind and wrap your arms around her hips and gave her an affectionate cuddle. Soon after the news broadcast shows another protestor, who screams out "This is the other PI 10! She could go rogue and cause yet another massacre just as large as this one!" the picture was of course none other than Nova herself. Nova immediately fell to her knees, all she ever wanted was to live a normal life, away from politics, away from deaths and lead a normal lifestyle where she could be as normal of a person as possible. Now it seems as if her past has come back to haunt her and trying to catch her trying to turn over a new leaf.

"It just isn't fair" Nova cried out on her knees, tears welling up in her eyes and a noticeable frown on her face with her cheeks lighting up a bright pink. "I've tried, so hard to be normal again, become a normal person, y'know?" this time looking over her shoulder in your direction as you rest your head from behind on top of her shoulder. "B-b-ut now I" you cover her lips with yours, silencing her and surrounding her in affection. It was a long kiss of affection, but well needed, and regained Nova's focus and attention to what was really at hand and what really matters to her and the individuals she cares about. You dip your nose against hers and rubbing it back and forth side to side gently against hers as she wraps her arms around the back of your neck and closes her eyes.

Delta lets out a scream which pierces the otherwise quiet of the entire house, Nova darts her head towards the stairs and sprints up the stairs at a blindingly fast speed towards the bedroom and found Delta hunched over sitting upright in her bed. "Delta! What's wrong?" Nova exclaimed while jumping onto her bed and consolidating a clearly distraught Delta. Delta's face was white and frozen with fear, as if she had just seen an Ultralisk charging at her. It's at this moment that you quickly pace into the room to find Nova hunched over Delta, "The, They're coming for you Nova, it was the middle of the night, all of them, they're masked, and-and-and they were in the house too! They were so scary and shouting things" Nova calmed Delta down trying to piece together what was said and what she had just dreamed about. Nova turned around and looked at you solely in the eyes "Baby, I love you and all, but right now she needs some privacy, can you go back downstairs and shut the door behind you?" You quickly oblige and silently shut the door behind you but wait outside.

An hour passed, and Nova slowly walks out of the room with her Hostile Environment Suit on and hair done as per usual. Do you really believe the dream she had? You ask out of curiosity to which Nova stares deeply into your eyes and says "Absolutely, she wouldn't be a Ghost if she was wrong, and now I'm going to try my very best to change the outcome of what she just saw, I'm calling Spaulding, he owes me big time after Gehenna". As she proceeded downstairs, you slowly open the door to the bedroom to find Delta lying on down on her bed with the sheets made. Delta? Can I come in? Delta nodded without looking at you. You gently enter the room and gently sat down on the side of her bed. You hardly ever saw Delta like this, she was always cheery and full of optimism and generally outgoing. Slowly you begin gently rubbing her belly which turned into lying down and cuddling her on top of her sheets, comforting her. Delta gently whispers "They killed you, first. I think you ran out trying to protect Nova, but they shot you down really fast before Nova could react and teep the bullets away". Your eyes widen and you gulp nervously because it sounds like something you would do given the situation.

Nova slowly opened the door and said "I brought you guys up some panca-"when she saw Delta clasped tightly into your arms. Nova gently puts the two plates of pancakes onto the drawer and gets into Delta's bed as well and wraps everyone into her arms. Reassuringly, Nova says "There are 3 Battlecruisers en route to this planet with 4 Hercules Class Drop ships carrying a small army of Marines as well as almost an entire division of Ghosts expected to in orbit within the next day or two at most". The most we can do now is bunker down and hope nothing comes either tonight or tomorrow night. You wanted to ask whether or not that was a tinge of fear you felt in her voice or not but thought again about saying it, to which she was thankful because it would have been met with a firm response she didn't want to give in this sensitive time.

The rest of the day was spent normally, nothing in particular exciting happened until later at night. Normally, Nova would be in Pyjamas upon finishing her bath but instead tonight she was in her battle load out which consisted of armour plating on top of her hostile environment suit, and Delta also followed suit. So, as night fell you lay in bed as two heavily armed girls sat in your room silently eyes trained out the windows of the bedroom with Nova pacing about back and forth between the her window and the bedroom door. Nova being Nova when she decided upon a residence wanted half inch thick Neosteel panels be placed into every wall frame ensuring structural stability as well as security. Alongside the Neosteel lay layers of padded mesh which had been proven to reduce the amount of outside thoughts coming into the premises. The front door to the property was built around a 30mm thick bonded carbide plate, to give the impression as if everything about it was a normal door but in reality it was anything but, the front door could withstand a Marine firing squad opening up fully automatic fire on it for 2 minutes with few penetrations. Nova wanted her house to be a fort, but look like a normal house so as to not draw suspicion or attention.

Hours passed, with no sign of anything happening Nova gently whispered to Delta to change into her Pyjamas and go to sleep, much to Delta's unliking she grumbled and agreed, Nova tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead and wished her sweet dreams as Nova stood up until dawn, her dedication not wandering to the protection of her family. For the first time in her life she was feeling a sense of dutiful protection to the ones she loves instead of protection of those she was forced into serving under. As the sun came up over the horizon she sighed a breath of relief and began taking off her armour plating and going to bed in her suit. Nova gently collapsed into bed, taking extra caution to not wake you up in the process, she thought about snuggling up against you but was worried about waking you, so instead slept on her side of the bed facing towards you gently kissing your lips before falling asleep as sunlight shone through the windows.

As the warm sunlight shone onto your face waking you up from your sleep you awake to Nova's face in front of you with the sunlight shining through strands of her hair making it look a brilliant blonde. You want to hug and kiss her, but judging by the deep bags under her eyes which aren't normally present you could thought otherwise as she likely only recently fell asleep. Very, very slowly you begin to slowly get out of bed to ensure you don't wake up Nova in the process, closing the bedroom door quietly behind you as you head downstairs to make breakfast for yourself and enough left over for whenever the girls wake up. Delta was the first to wake up, the fleet arrived sooner than anticipated and began coming in overhead. This planet was alien to the presence of Terran warships overhead as they were in a secluded part of the stellar neighbourhood, away from the fighting and had little influence by the Terran Dominion.

The first two Drop ships touched down on an LZ located in and around a park close to the property and began spewing military equipment and hardware into the areas around it. Smaller troop ferrying ships began dropping off small squads of Ghosts who were to rendezvous near the property while Marine Force Recon began assessing and securing the ground around the premises. It was only now that you realize how important Nova was, you found it completely astonishing that at the click of her fingers and with a legitimate reason she managed to call down the wrath of the Terran dominion around her. Pro's to being a very, very important asset to the Terran dominion even if it's not immediately required in peacetime with the Zerg and Protoss.

"Where did all these guys come from? I thought they would have been taken out defending Tarsonis "You asked Delta, she replies "Well, they weren't assigned to the defence of Tarsonis you see, they're primarily all special missions units, exempt from the nitty gritty stuff the normal guys see". You've never touched a gun in your life up until meeting Nova, never even thought about killing another human being or what have you before so the idea that now suddenly all these people were arriving at your doorstep willing to do that for you in the event that it came to it left you breathless.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, knocks on the door made absolutely no sound heard inside as the thick armour plating inside the doorframe made any audible sound outside virtually completely unheard. Delta yelled out "I'll get it!" as she bounced down stairs towards the door. It was Spaulding and he immediately recognized that he wasn't talking to an ordinary young girl as Delta appeared in front of him in her Ghost suit. Upon looking up at him she mumbled "You smell funny, and you look wei-"you cover her mouth with the palm of your hand and smile at the man. Now now Delta, what did I say about making those types of comments about visitors, laughing awkwardly you look at the broad shouldered, 6 foot tall of a man standing at your doorstep and awkwardly ask "W-what can I do for you..err, sir". His eyes darted up and down then rechecked his papers and turned around to ask his NCO, you sure this is the place? To which his NCO checks his papers and nodded assumingly. I'm here to see a November Terra, do you by any chance know her? Delta's eyes lit up and quickly spewed out "Yes we do! I'll go wake her up!" and she sprinted up the stairs with speed. You try to make conversation with the man in front of you, "Sooo" to which he bluntly replied you got knocked up and gave birth to that? Your eyes widened and muttered out "Tha, no oh no no no" she's Nova's surrogate daughter. He grunts and briefly replies "Huh, is that so, we'll all be damn, didn't think she was much of a" to which he abruptly finishes his sentence with Nova walking down the stairs. Nova upon reaching the bottom of the staircase asked Spaulding to finish his sentence to which he wasn't very inclined to do so.

Nova's hair was all over the place, Delta hadn't given her any time to look appropriate for the meeting, with her long pony tail untied it formed a layered mess at the back and her normally neat bangs sporadically spread across her face, she was not in the mood either only managing to catch a few hours' sleep at the most. "Is there uhh, anywhere we can talk in private?" Spaulding asked, to which Nova hastily replied "Yeah, just through here" she said so while turning around and walking down the main corridor of the house. As he step foot into the house, Delta told Spaulding what you couldn't "Mr Captain Spaulding Colonel sir, If you could take off your boots before walking in our house, my Daddy would greatly appreciate it" pointing at you, you hastily brushed her hand back down and smile at Spaulding to which in turn rolls his eyes and complies as his NCO follows suit.

They were locked away in the meeting room for quite some time, hours had passed by and you were wondering if they were still talking about the events happening here and now, unlikely. You turn to Delta who is equally just as curious as to what is happening inside that room and ask her "Do you know the history between them?" to which Delta replies "Nope" maintaining an intent stare on the door of the meeting room. Moments later Nova opens the door to the room to see you and Delta intently looking towards the door from behind a couch, quickly ducking down behind cover when the doors had sprang open. You quietly hear "Strictly private and confidential Nova" abruptly followed by a clearly annoyed Nova growling back "My family has every right to know as much as I do" to which Spaulding replied "Very well", Nova personally saw to it that he left the property and stood outside.

With the front door shut, Delta shouts out "So what's gonna happen!" to which Nova sighed gently and said "Nothing's gonna happen Delta, just they're gonna sit outside for a week or two and make sure we're okay". You could see from Nova's facial expression that she was relieved but still very concerned, to her, you could have an entire armada of Battlecruisers overhead right now and it still wouldn't instil a perfect sense of security for her. You wrap your arms around both Delta and Nova forming some sort of a circle, "I'm sure we're going to be fine now, right?" to which Nova once again sighed and replied "Yeah, I guess so" Nova leans in for a kiss when she read your mind wondering as to whether or not now would be the right time to kiss to which Delta looked at and scampered off to the living room turning on the holo-projector. "You should really get some more sleep in Nova" to which she nodded in agreement. Still in her suit you picked her up to her surprise and carried her up the stairs to which she giggled and smiled gleefully. Tucking her into bed, holding her tightly against your body, nuzzling away at her nose before she passes out into a deep sleep. You decide now would be a pretty good time to take a nap as well but reminded yourself you needed to be up again in a few hours to prepare dinner for Delta.

Later that night as you and Delta prepared to go to sleep, Nova was wide awake, once again being completely kitted up in her armour plating staring out the window at the small army below in her yard, on the street, and in the neighbouring areas around the premises, virtually a makeshift fortress in the middle of a relative suburbia. Nova was sat down in bed tonight though, different from a much more active pacing back and forth last night. You feel as if she's scared, even though she wouldn't admit it and certainly not to the people who were protecting her. You come up from behind and wrap your arms around her waist to which she bluntly replies " I am NOT scared" folding her arms and looking away from you "Really?", after a long pause "Okay, maybe just a bit worried, but I definitely wouldn't say I'm scared" with as much defiance as the first time. My dad once told me "I do respect other people's faith, but I do not respect their manipulation of their faith in order to create fear and control in others" and to be honest Nova, I think they're just saying that to get you all worried and scared Nova, they want to evoke a response from you to which you have and -. Nova cuts in "But Delta's dream, she's never wrong, you can change the events of what happens in those dreams and that's what I was doing, or trying to do, we just don't know yet". A period of silence ensues, you decide to break it with "Then can you at least try to get a good night's sleep in with Delta and I tonight?" She looks back at you with a concerned look on her face "Please Nova?" She sighs and replies "I'll try", Thank you Nova followed with a quick kiss. As you exit the bedroom she muttered "But I can't make any promises, and when I do, I'll sleeping with one eye open".

"Nova can I stay up tonight too?!" Delta exclaimed, to which Nova replied, "No, not tonight Delta, thanks though", Delta was visibly disappointed but knew Nova wouldn't change her mind. Nova tucked Delta in to sleep and you wandered in soon after closing the door behind you. Nova once again sat down on the side of the bed facing the window, peering outside to what was happening outside, which wasn't anything particularly exciting but that didn't matter. You wrap your arms around Nova's waist and place your head on top of her shoulder and span your legs around Nova's and held her tightly until you fell asleep. Nova was touched by your display of affection but remained dedicated to having a personal expression of interest in ensuring their safety. Hours passed and with you still wrapped around her she finally had decided to call it a night, she carefully unfolded your arms and gently placed you back on the bed as she began taking off her amour but once again going to sleep in her suit.

After taking her armour off, she gently and as quietly as she could slipped into bed and snuggled up against you. She began tearing up, thinking back at what you had told her earlier that night about fears and overcoming them, and how it was affecting her and others around her. Nova unknowingly squeezed tighter and tighter around your chest borderline suffocating you, causing you to wake up. Finding a teary eyed Nova on resting her head on your chest you comfort her and proceed to nuzzle her and wrap your arms firmly around her. Even though you weren't exactly a teep by any means, you knew what she was thinking. When she began audibly crying and whimpering you begin to stroke her backside and reassuringly tell her that it's okay, and everything's going to be fine which calms her down.


	2. Chapter 2

Epilogue

Months had passed since, things were changing both at home and throughout the sector. Valerian had shown an expression of interest once again in Nova over the last few months, meaning that Nova on a few occasions needed to leave the house and conduct missions once again for the Dominion. Luckily for Delta, Nova had convinced high command to allow her to at least finish school before being allowed to go on any more ops. Meanwhile, today Nova has decided to continue a push and concerted effort between both Delta and herself to try and expand on your own psionic talents, as it has become apparent to her that you are now at the very least able to sense the presence of the girls without normal senses which indicate that you have above average psionic abilities.

The story ensues

"What do you mean you don't know?!" Nova exclaimed as she glared at you in both disappointment and anger. "Nova, you can't just, I-I'm just a PI 4, you can't expect me to just pick it up like tha-", Nova cuts you off "What do you mean I can't, we've been at this for so long, statistically you should have been able to blindly guess what I'm thinking by now!". You fell silent, not knowing what to say in rebuttal, with a disappointed look on your face you bob your head down in shame in front of her and Delta standing idly behind her. Delta equally looked just as disappointed, unusual considering her often cheery and outgoing personality, you could tell even she was expecting you to make some form of progress with all these intensive training sessions you've been having.

Silence fell across the room, as did the air of disappointment fill the room and affecting everyone in it, you could feel that Nova and Delta both wanted you to at least show some sign of improvement, some sort of inkling that you had gained some form of ability to mind read, even in the slightest. Nova had been pushing you so hard these last few days, hoping for some sort of sign but obviously to no avail. You slowly look up and manage to form the words "I'm sorry Nova, I", "No, Will, I'm sorry, I've been pushing you really hard these last few days, I think we need some well-earned rest" she said with a smile across her face, her lips adorned with a light pink lipstick. Nova closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around your neck and going in for a kiss, to which you oblige. Upon releasing you both softly say "Apology accepted" followed by a brief nuzzle and laughs and smiling ensuing.

"I'll go prepare dinner" you say with a smile, staring into her deep green eyes to which she replies "Can I help?" enthusiastically with a smile on her face. You break a sweat, smiling nervously jittering out "Uhh, No dear, its fine I've got it, come on Delta"; Nova wasn't amused with her smile and enthusiasm quickly fading to a blank expression on her face followed up with a trademark leer. "Daddy why won't you let Mommy help out in making Dinner?" Delta asked as you two began walking down stairs, you make eye contact with her and quietly think to yourself "Do you remember what happened last time?!" to which caused Nova to jump up and infuriatingly lean over the staircase from the top floor above you snarled "I heard that!", her leer and blank facial expression had turned into one of rage, with her cheeks flushing a bright red on her pale face, feeling both embarrassed and angered at the same time. Upon hearing her rage you and Delta bolt down the staircase and hurriedly ran towards the safety of the kitchen, Delta shouting in fear the whole way down.

The reality was, Nova wasn't exactly any good at cooking by any stretch of the imagination, she knew it, you knew it and now Delta definitely knew it. But that didn't mean that she was all too happy about admitting that she wasn't a very good cook. A task as simple as frying an egg sunny side up had become so difficult for Nova that often times you would end up getting an unforseen serving of scrambled eggs instead of a fried one. Which is why you feel that it is necessary to do everything in your power to make sure Delta manages to at the very least have some basic understanding of how to make and prepare not only her own food, but also Nova's as well. You always thought baking was a good place to start off, a lot of your school friends growing up used to love baking and it was the perfect practice for Delta to learn as it was familiar to her, using the alliteration of fire and forget Nukes to baking which seemed to cause more confusion than clarity for Delta. Nevertheless she caught on quickly and was soon enough making all sorts of different things, from Bread loafs to sweet cakes and savoury pies. You were trying to be the best dad in the world which Delta constantly reminded you after each successful attempt at making something new and exciting, much to Nova's dismay as she not only didn't share the same amount of passion Delta had towards baking but despised it, citing "Why can't I just turn the oven to max heat and cook the damn thing faster instead of waiting here for half an hour just to get a single loaf of bread!" to which you and Delta slowly backed away from the kitchen whenever Nova was this frustrated, clutching each other in fear.

Nova stayed upstairs in the bedroom while dinner was being prepared downstairs, fondling with her hair and cutting off split ends of her long pony tail. The smell of Dinner was wafting through the house and had reached upstairs, igniting her Olfactory nerve and causing her to dart her head up and look in the direction of the door, she was hungry, but very stubborn and remained defiant. Nova slammed the door loudly enough that you were able to hear the door slam from downstairs, causing you and Delta to jump slightly out of shock. Delta darted her head at you and quickly said "Dibs not bringing dinner up" just as you began saying the exact same thing, you both knew what that meant, and you weren't particularly pleased while Delta stood there with the biggest, cheeky grin on her face and eyes lighting up in the process. You sighed, rolled your eyes and in one short breath let out "Fine, I'll do it". To which Delta gleefully giggled and teetered side to side in joy continuing to slice the garnishes for the final touches to dinner.

Delta was particularly happy tonight, you had prepared Tirian Beef roast with a side of mashed potato and gravy roasted vegetables and a briefly tossed together Mc Calister lettuce salad dressed with an oil and vinegar dressing. You had specifically prepared a cup of Framberry juice for Nova to which had caught the attention of Delta as well "Can I have a cup of Framberry juice too Daddy!" you were thinking of saying no which Delta had easily read the thought, but upon reaching the staircase said "I know you'll probably have some anyway, and I'd rather not have you drink it straight from the bottle, so fine, one cup, BUT ONE CUP only" with particular emphasis on the end of the sentence as you began to slowly creep up the stairs towards Nova's lair and dwelling with Dinner and a cup of Framberry juice poured into her mug.

Upon reaching the door, you had tactfully placed dinner away from the door and off your body, not knowing how much calmer Nova had become since slamming the door. Cautiously you place your hand on the door handle and twisting it slowly and gently so as to make as little noise as possible, creating just enough space to view directly into the room, particularly enough to come into view of your bed. Nova was clearly still peeved off, with her arms cross across her chest and head pointed out towards the window, away from the door and sat perfectly still on the edge of the bed. Before you could say anything she began teeking away at the door, placing enough psionic force upon the door to close it but not enough that it would cause you to fall backwards. "N-Nova, I uhh, I mean, we, uhh, we made you some dinner, Delta and I, that is" you muttered out in a semi convincing tone. Nova remaining perfectly still and in a monotone voice said "Go away", exerting even more psionic force on the door, but still not enough to loosen your grip to the ground. "Shall I just uhh, leave it at the door then Nova?" to which then all force placed upon the door suddenly halted, pushing you forward into the room, you knew this was your queue to bring her the food.

"Y, Y'know, it'd be a lot nicer and I think Delta would appreciate it if we could sit down at the dinner table and enjoy dinner as a family" you said as you brought in her plate of food and cup of juice. A brief moment of silence was had in the room with Nova seemingly still peeved off as she was moments ago as you were standing outside. Instead, you decided to take the more spiritual approach and slowly approach her without the food, placing it down on the drawer. Not sure whether or not now was the right time to wrap your arms around her or not, but you decided to do so anyway, dipping your nose into the back of her neck coming up from behind her, you thought the thoughts "I'm sorry Nova, you can come and make dinner with us tomorrow night if you want to" to which she replied verbally "Yeah, I'd like that", turning her head away from the window and nuzzling you, she smiled and gleefully said "Apology accepted" and stood up. On your way out of the bedroom with Nova in tow, hands held firmly together "and for the record, last time it was totally not my fault okay, the knife wasn't sharp enough so I had to improvise!" she exclaimed, "Nova, you cut the cutting board in two and cut an inch deep into the solid marble kitchen top" you replied, Nova snarled back "Still worked didn't it" it was a useless argument and you knew it wouldn't get anywhere so you gave in "Fine, your right".

By the time you and Nova had come downstairs Delta had already finished her meal, greeting the two of you with a Framberry juice induced burp that seemed to create shock waves in the air, quickly followed by a scent faintly resembling everything on her now clean plate mixed with Framberry. Delta in particular was excited as it meant that she would be having her favourite Tirian beef, Mc Callister lettuce and mustard sandwich tomorrow for lunch at school as you were always meticulously planning portion sizing ahead making sure to have enough leftovers. Delta ran past you two and into the living room turning on the holo projector as you two began to sit down for dinner at the dining table.

"I'm sorry I lost it at you earlier, Will" as she placed her knife and fork down gently onto the plate and made eye contact with you. "It's okay Nova, I understand what you meant, and it was all in good intent" you said reassuringly followed by a genuine smile. "I don't want you to remain a PI 4, if Valerian finds out you could be assigned as a Wrangler, and you know the life those guys live" Nova said in a concerning tone. "Yeah, but what difference would it make, if I made it to a PI 5 and were able to read minds, then wouldn't they just throw me into ghost academy?" you pressed to which she suddenly seemed substantially more relaxed and carefree replying with "I have enough influence over the academy to ensure that doesn't happen, any wrangler who does come in search of you, I'll just tell them that they're senses are fooling them as they are in the presence of not just one ghost but two, and one of them just so happens to be the most powerful one in existence" with a hint of arrogance towards the end of her bold statement. You decided to take what she said for what it was, you had no doubt in what she could get done, you had no reason not to believe what she said.

You had finished dinner first, but decided to wait for her to finish hers before leaving the table, just in case she had anything else she wanted to talk about, as usually most things were discussed nowadays at the dinner table, especially while Delta's attention was directed away from you and Nova. As Nova was drawing close to finishing her meal, concerned by today's events, even though they had been discussed already, you decided to ask anyway "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about Nova?" to which Nova looked up at you, smiled in an assuring manner and replied no. With that in mind you piled your plates up on top of one another, meticulously stacking the knives and forks on the top plate to the kitchen sink and proceeded to clean them then and there by hand.

"Y'know, I never quite understood why you never wanted to get a dish washer, my late father owned numerous factories which made all types of different machines to make life easie-" you cut her off and firmly say "Nova, I've told you once before and the reason still stands today, I grew up doing it exactly like this, and I know, it makes life easier and what not but I just feel particularly old fashioned about doing it this way, my parents taught me this method and I still do it till this day". Nova could tell that it meant deeply to you that you did this particular chore your way, and that you weren't particular ready for change to this tradition "Okay, I'm sorry, I was just thought that –"Nova knew she shouldn't finish that sentence and left you alone to tend to the dishes and joined a much more cheerful and happy Delta in the living room.

As you are cleaning the dishes, on the final rinse of each plate before they go on the drying rack you notice a highly encrypted line of communication was pinging the residence over the intercom, with it being strictly intended for Nova under the caller ID. You call out to Nova who initially takes the call in the room, Authenticating with "X-ray Foxtrot Oscar Echo Tango Tango November" in a very monotone voice, soon after picking up the call she makes eye contact briefly before spinning away down the corridor at a fairly brisk pace and going upstairs, closing the bedroom door behind her. As you finish up with the last plate you call out to Delta to turn off the holo projector and prepare for a shower followed up with bed soon after. Delta let out a grumbled "Fine" as she jumped off the couch and turned off the projector. Noticing that Delta wasn't in a particular cheery mood you decided to pick her up and carry her up the stairs, to which she let out a cry and playful yelp, approaching the top of the stairs you usher her in the direction of the bathroom and quietly tell her that you'll go get her pyjamas. With Delta in the bathroom you firmly knock on the door to the bedroom, to which Nova abruptly opens holding both your own and Delta's pyjamas before quickly closing the door, you didn't think twice about it but knew whatever she was talking about or whoever she was talking to was secret.

As Nova finished her shower, closing the bedroom door behind her and gently slips into bed, she already knew what was in your mind, but wanted you to ask it anyway. So? You ask Hmm? Nova responded wanting a more clearly defined question, "You know what I'm dying to know Nova, how important is it?" she smiles reassuringly "Nothing serious enough that it can't wait till tomorrow morning" she responded with confidence so as to allow you a good night's sleep without worrying you too much, and with that she dug her head under yours and wrapped her arms around you, dipping her nose and cheek into your chest. You lean your head back and kiss her forehead and wish her sweet dreams before resting your head on top of hers.


	3. Chapter 3

It's the morning after, but the sun hasn't fully risen yet, its cold outside and you immediately notice, looking down beneath the sheets, turning left and right you notice that Nova isn't with you. "Relax, I'm right over here" Nova says in the corner of the room, much to your relief. Nova normally doesn't wake up before you, in fact normally she lies in wait until you're awake before moving, and you knew by now that if she was up and awake before you, that she was preparing for an Operation.

Nova stood in the corner of the room, with the closet doors open she stood between them, in something you've never seen her in before. Nova was in her regular hostile environment suit and plating, but on top of that she wore what appeared to be a large and puffy parka, black in colour with a trim of white fur at connecting joints, including the internal rim of the hood. "Tha- That's a umm" you stumbled out of your mouth staring in awe of Nova, Thanks she replied, blushing slightly as her cheeks became a light pink. "Where are you going to?" You ask her, noting that she had never worn the parka before, "It must be really cold wherever you're goin-", Nova cuts you off mid-sentence "They think they've found something, an "Artifact" at the northern pole". Generally you knew this meant that she would be operating far away, at far flung reaches of the sector, she had to be ready in 18 hours or less for immediate deployment, often at a lot less notice than the standard 18 hours.

"What do you mean the North pole? This one? Like, right here?!" you exclaimed, with a large degree of concern in your voice. "Yeah, this one" she said, sounding equally concerned as you, "I don't want to scare you, and I didn't want Delta to hear this, but they're coming as well, and I'm part of a QRF assigned to defend this planet". "So that's what that message coming in last night was about?" you asked in a much slower tone, to which she replied in one short breath "Yeah, it was". You could tell she was concerned, she had hoped that it would never come to this, but knew it was only inevitable. "They already sent out scans and detected the presence of a small Zerg hive cluster, but their progress has been slowed because of the temperatures, looks like they need some time to adapt to the conditions" upon finishing her sentence she turned around to you, trying to sound optimistic and smiling, trying to reassure you that everything was going to be okay. You seemed convinced by what she said, she seemed genuine enough about it, but deep down she knew there was more to it, and she had drastically down played the severity of the situation.

"So, you'll be back by nightfall right? Just a few nukes and it should all be over right?" you ask, sounding hopeful but you could tell that Nova wasn't as optimistic she replies "They said expect to be there by end of the week, at best". Nova at this point leaned down over Delta's bed, brushed her hair to the side and kissed her forehead, being careful to not wake her in the process, after which she looked back up at you and signalled you to follow her out of the room, grabbing her kit and walking out. This was the longest time she was expected to be away for, and you could tell she was just as concerned as you were being away from home for that long of a time. Upon following her out of the room, you come up from behind and threw your arms around her, digging your face into her hood in the process. "I'll miss you Nova" conveying a tone of sincere and heartfelt care and sympathy, holding back tears in the process, wanting to remain strong to ensure your sense of fear doesn't pass onto her. Unbeknownst to you however, she was feeling equally just as scared as this was the first time in the roughly 2 years she had known you and began trying to turn a new leaf she was going to be away on a relatively long deployment. As a ghost, typically most of her missions were expected to be over in a matter of days, especially Nova's as typically it involved a simple task with a clear and distinct goal, but this wasn't an ordinary mission, and this wasn't a mission which had every intricate detail set out either.

Initial scans indicated the presence of a relatively small sized hive cluster at a point close to the North Pole of the planet. Due to the sheer size of the planet and its distance away from the sun it meant that the temperature at either pole was substantially below freezing, whatever the Zerg had found in buried in the Ice also had also attracted the attention of the Protoss who were in the process of forming warp fields to teleport in. The Terran QRF Mainly consisted of local forces, with heavier equipment and hardware expected to reach orbit within the next few hours, breaking out of Warpspace. The local forces were inexperienced with facing such opposition, and as such local militia and criminals were needed to fill the space shortages of local forces. It also just happened that even though Ghosts typically didn't hold a specific rank or don insignia detailing rank, it was generally understood that Ghosts graduated the academy with the rank of Lieutenant. Nova on the other hand, because of her previous and past experiences, as well as the importance she plays regardless of how she spent the last 2 years or so of her life maintained the rank of Major. Though formally, she would not be addressed as Major, in the field of operations or the theatre of warfare her orders were to be acted upon as if an officer or similar or equal rank had given them. As such, Nova was required to direct all local forces because she outranked the highest ranking officer that would otherwise be in charge, until reinforcements arrived to which she had laid bets on to be Colonel Spaulding.

In reality, Valerian had held a much larger degree of interest on the planet than anyone had thought. Valerian used the planet's defence as a case point example of the dominion fighting back against the threats posed by the Zerg and Protoss. Valerian had assigned Colonel Spaulding almost an entire fleet of Battlecruisers, newly built and refurbished with state of the art equipment. On board were entire divisions of Marines and support troops of mixed veterancy, some fresh out of the Barracks and others battle hardened and toughened Marines who had served for a number of years. Valerian wanted to regain his people's motivation, and saw this as an opportunity to strike back at the Aliens, it was a war of hearts and minds as much as it was a tactical and decisive one. On one hand the planet didn't have much realistic significance to the Terrans, but in the other was a potential for a theatre of war which could prove to be a victory that secures public confidence in the war efforts after the massacre that happened on Tarsonis.

"Well, I guess its good bye for now then, Will…" She said so with a concerned look on her face, turning away from the front door and looking back at you. "I'll miss you Nova, please take care" as you went in and bumped heads with her, placing your forehead against hers. Nova could tell the amount of worry and concern you had for her, she became touched and initiated a long and passionate kiss. "Ahem" and a harsh cough followed as the Lieutenant grovelled his feet on the cement pavement by the front gate, ensuring he could be heard from across the courtyard. "I guess I should get going then" this time, even Nova had a concerned look on her face "Tell Delta I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye for me" she said, with a deep throb at her neck. "I will, and Nova?" as she was taking paces down the cement footpath which lead through the garden, she turned to be met with your arms flung around her. "I love you", "I love you" The Lt found it weird that you had both said it such that they sounded like statements rather than compassionate phrases. As Nova turned around and began walking towards the awaiting Lt and drop ship assigned to her "I don't expect him to understand what it is I'm doing, or understand why I'm doing it, I just hope he understands it and accepts it". She tried with all her might to maintain a flat and expressionless face as she boarded the ship, making sure to live up to the expectations of Ghosts being emotionless even though she was anything but mere moments ago.

"Welcome to Duty commander" The Lt said, it was clear to Nova that this man has had at least some degree of military training, even before reading his mind. Deep down she knew he was scared, his experience at the academy had not prepared him for an encounter with a Ghost, let alone being ordered around by one. There was a distinct disliking and fear amongst Marines throughout the Terran dominion for Ghosts, so much so that they had even developed hardware specifically for the task of detecting and seeing the presence of Ghosts that was mainly sold through the various black markets found across the sector at a hefty price, which meant very few marines could actually afford one. Nova could sense his fear, but chose to remain visually disinterested as she marked key points of interest on the interactive map on the tablet. "Lieutenant, ensure my Spotrep goes to Fleetcom by the time we get back to base" Nova said in a monotone voice as she sat at the back of the drop ship en route to the planet's Command Centre, "That will be all" she followed up with in a much more authoritative tone, choosing to remain seated making him come over in order to retrieve the tablet from her. "Y-yes ma'am!" he exclaimed as he quickly darted towards the back of the drop ship, "The pilot said we should be-"She cut him off "I know" she pressed at him. Nova began regretting showing signs of affection in front of a subordinate, she began thinking of ways to ensure that he knew she meant business, most of which contained the idea of killing him, but restrained herself from doing so. It was still a long journey to their allocated drop zone near the planet's command centre, as it had been moved intentionally closer to the northern poles, but still within relative safety.

Upon landing, with her drop ship door landing vertically down acting as an access ramp off the ship, Nova takes a look of her surroundings. The air was dry, strong wind blowing east to west and bringing with it was small amounts of snow. There was already large clumps of snow on the ground, it was then that she noted the immediate size of the base, notably the lack of many structures that were had on the surface. Generally most Terran bases had their Supply Depots deployed underground but in this base, there lacked even the most basic buildings, to which was expected considering the Command Centre had just relocated here but even then it still lacked too much. "Underground" her Lt said, it hadn't occurred to her that perhaps some of the bases facilities were located underground, in the far side of the base she noticed a heavily fortified entrance, somewhat appearing to be a tunnel which appeared to be an entrance deep into a mountainside, the top of which wasn't clearly visible due to the snow storm. "This is the most fortified place on the Planet, it was out first choice in terms of a base location on this planet, it just so happens it's also relatively close to where all the action is, ma'am" he said in an informative tone, but Nova seemed still disinterested as ever, even though inside she was actually rather fascinated about the base. "Right this way to your quarters Ma'm, I'll have your Spotrep sent to Fleetcom ASAP" signalling for another Marine to take the Tablet into the tunnel. Nova stood visibly emotionless, looking towards the tunnel entrance as they began walking towards it, the huge neosteel gates opening upon her arrival but still had not yet fully opened.

As they were traveling down the elevator shaft, further down deeper into the mountain, the lieutenant decided it was a good idea to try and open conversation by describing the characteristics of the base and the mountain it was built around. To his dismay Nova seemed as disinterested as ever, maintaining her cold and expressionless face all throughout his talk, arms folded and standing still as the elevator sped down the shaft. Passing numerous facilities and training areas on the way down the Lt stated "Y'know, this baby wasn't really used until about a week ago when they detected the Zerg were comi-"which to the amazement of the Lt, Nova cut him off "They knew the Zerg were coming a week ago?" she said in a disgruntled tone, turning to him to make eye contact with a now clearly alarmed man she hissed "How come I wasn't told?" maintaining a focused and intense leer into his eyes. The Lt didn't have an answer for her, at first she wasn't sure if it was because he didn't know or it was fear, moments later she confirmed it was because he was left out of the loop. Nova wasn't surprised Highcom decided to leave out intricate details on the mission at hand, after all, they had a history of generally not giving a damn about anything that didn't affect their immediate safety. Nova pointed her head away from the Lt, he could sense the amount of annoyance she was experiencing, but thought twice about having a conversation with her about it.

Upon arriving at the base of the mountain, clearly not in the mood she raised her hood of her parka to cover her head, in such a way that it also shielded her face from the bright lighting of the ceiling. "Lieutenant, where are my quarters" she snarled at him "R-r-right over here ma'am" taking several quick paces ahead in the direction of the Officer's quarters. Nova followed in tow, with her eyes hanging low and towards the floor, she was missing home; something about standing in a gigantic underground military base, thousands of feet underground where it was cold dark and dreary made her feel alone, not necessarily afraid but definitely like an outsider, and walking past people who abruptly stood to attention, saluting her wasn't making her feel any better. It had been two long years since she had to deal with any of this, never in her life before had she been in a position where her rank immediately meant something either, these people around her, she felt their thoughts and she wasn't particularly fond of having them all treating her differently, almost as an inhuman figure, she wanted to change that but remembered that her time spent here would be limited. Nevertheless she had brought objects from home to make her stay feel a bit more homely, she deep down couldn't wait to begin decorating her quarters "Well, If I'm going to stay there for a week or more, I might as well right?" she remembered thinking that before leaving the house.

Little did Nova know, her mission and what it entailed would mean that she would be away for a lot longer than what either Highcom or Fleetcom had informed her. The intricacies of the situation were far greater than what either the Lt or the initial Spotrep given to her detailed. The "artefact" had in fact all been completely fictitious, the Zerg and Protoss were here for the intention of controlling the vast planet, taking it out of Terran hands, and using it as a platform to launch further assaults at one another, both armies were heavily committing resources to the capture of this crucial interstellar foothold in this region of the interstellar neighbourhood. The "small" Zerg hive cluster may indeed have been a small one, but at the moment this was only the case because the colony needed to genetically adapt to the surrounding environment, thus early expansion meant a large amount of deaths which dwindled growth and expansion of the hive cluster. The Protoss on the other hand had already begun moving key pieces of their vast fleet towards the planet, warping various city ships and a large number of Motherships into the zone, which even though was moving at unimaginable speed would still take a number of days in order to get there.

Highcom were aware of the presence of a much larger Protoss force than the one detailed in Nova's report en route to the planet. The excessive amount of radiation in open space detailed the imminent opening of a warp space hole, which remained consistent to that of a medium to large sized invasion fleet. Upon Nova's arrival at the planet, Fleetcom had approved the use of a far larger number of battlecruisers and space assets to be assigned to the defence of the planet under direct orders of Valerian. Socom too had given way under pressure from Valerian, under the orders from the Director a large number of Ghost agents and operatives were to be assigned to the Battlecruisers, virtually emptying the already small Ghost facilities, even forcing the early graduation of some recruits to join the ranks of more seasoned veterans to board the Battlecruisers. Ghost fire teams in training, recruits essentially were also thrown into the fray, the mission being labled a "training mission" as were all missions assigned to them.

Valerian was committing, in his eyes justified amounts of resources, to him this decisive battle meant a multitude of things, some more important than others but all of which added together totalled to become a very important and strategic battle. Much to the dismay of Highcom, Fleetcom and Socom which each had to drastically overextend already stretched out resources to meet with this incoming threat which has since made itself clearly more apparent and defined over the last few days. Valerian each trusted his commanders word that the combined task force sent out to deal with the threat was sufficient to deal with it, but he had decided to see to it himself that things were progressing as intended and to schedule, the way he liked on the ground while both fleets were en route.

"Ma'am, you have a priority one hail" the Lt said to Nova as they were walking towards her quarters. "I'll take it when I'm inside my quarters", "Ma'am I really think you should take a look at this, his caller ID Is consistent with Va-" Nova clearly annoyed cut him off mid-sentence "In that case I'll definitely take that in my quarters, I don't care who it is" she said bluntly and continued walking. "I just made Valerian wait for me on hold" she thought to herself, and visibly smiled out of sight. Upon reaching her quarters she was met with two tall and broad shouldered Marines standing guard at her door. Even though she had decided that now was not the time for making changes, she decided that this one was necessary. "Lieutenant, relieve these two men from their posts, I do not need door guards" Nova stated in a monotone voice, immediately the two men saluted her and marched off in a formal manner before the Lt said anything. "I guess I'll see you in the lat-"Nova slammed the door shut behind her not allowing enough time for the Lt to finish his sentence.

Valerians call in reality to Nova was going to have to wait, first order of business was going to be the laying out of her belongings she had brought with her in a very modest looking civilian style backpack which had gained attention of her peers on the walk towards her quarters. After which a call home would be the next order of business to deal with her home sickness that came about rapidly upon her arrival, at first it was low rumble but now was a loud disturbance playing with her sense of emotions and feelings. "Hi Will!" she exclaimed loudly filled with a flood of emotions and feelings, which were equally reciprocated by you on the other end. Nova squealed loudly upon seeing your face, you could tell that things were tough for her right now and offered your condolences as both her friend and her partner to which she reacted upon positively. "Listen, baby I've got to cut this short for now, Valerian wants a "talk", and I'll call back after that okay?" Nova said intently into the camera. Feeling refreshed and with her feelings and emotions now in check she took the call from Valerian who had now been in hold for about half an hour.

"You know, some people would jump at the chance to even be able to call from me, let alone one that has been specifically directed at you" Valerian stated in an authoritative tone, staring intently at Nova who was lazily lying down on her bed. Rolling her eyes Nova replied "Is that all you had to tell me or was there something els-"Valerian cut her off, she wasn't very amused at that. "Well as a matter of fact there is something more important than that Nova, as my Eyes and Ears on the ground I thought it would be good for us to be in contact with one another a lot more fre-"Nova abruptly ended the call, deciding for herself that that was the only thing he intended to tell her, after all she had more pressing matters to attend to, to her anyway. Opting to call home again which prevented Valerian's assistant from opening another channel to Nova, much to the annoyance of Valerian but also brought about a wide smirk on his face, remarking "I like her already, what did you say her name was? Nova? Call her back whenever that line becomes free, she's got to hang up sooner or later". Hours passed, Valerian suddenly snapped, shouting "WHO COULD SHE POSSIBLY BE CALLING FOR THIS LONG?" his assistant gave up soon after.

Nova remained on that call all throughout the day, on pausing for moments where she needed to retrieve meals that were delivered to her quarters. "Nova, why are you still wearing that uhh, jacket?" you ask her out of curiosity "Well, first of all, it's not a Jacket Will! It's a Parka, and secondly some idiot of a designer thought that it would be a good idea to place my quarters at the bottom of a mountain, thousands of feet into solid bedrock, so it's really cold here" she said with a scowl on her face, arms folded across her chest. It had just occurred to her that she was still wearing armour plating underneath the parka which limited her movement in such a way that she wasn't too particularly fond of. "If that thing's so well designed for cold weather, why does it's sleeves cut off at the forearm?" Nova stopped for a moment, midway taking off her chest piece "I guess they thought it'd be a good idea to keep the arms uncovered I guess, maybe for mobility purposes…?". "Does Delta have one too?" Nova thought about it again and replied "Uhh, Don't think so, pretty sure they only gave it to me one time because I apparently needed it for one missions I did ages back, I just kept mine 'cos I thought it looked nice". Reality was you did think it looked nice on her, it was form fitting and encompassed her perfectly, giving a greater deal of attention onto her face and green eyes. Hours passed, and soon enough, night was drawing in which reminded Nova she needed psionic padding to be installed on the wall facing the outside of her quarters. Nova ducked her head outside of her door and barked "Psionic padding, my walls, now!" which scrambled the few people in the corridor to move into action, retrieving the padding from a supply depot and rushing them down to her quarters with haste. Nova had a particularly difficult time falling asleep with the thoughts of so many others bombarding into the room.

Nova wished you and Delta goodnight, as did you two do the same to her as the first day without her came to an end. Following up with that note you tucked Delta into her bed and kissed her forehead, you didn't normally do that and generally Nova had that task but you felt that it was the right thing to do. "Thanks Daddy" as you slipped into bed as well, preparing to fall asleep. Nova on the other hand had brought her pillow with her to the base and hugged it to sleep, clenching it tightly against her chest and gradually fell asleep.

Okay so instead of writing – adding reviews onto my own work I felt that adding my comments directly towards the end of the story would be a better idea.

So as I was writing this it had occurred to me that I had begun sounding a bit too similar to Halo-ey storylines, particularly with references to highcom, fleetcom, etc etc. I may or may not go with that into next chapter, I think it adds detail into the military aspect of things. One minute detail I'd like to add is the proper use of spotrep and sitrep, in the instances which I used the words were in the militarily correct places.

I have an interest in all things military, so I try to remain perfectly, 100% accurate in the use of its terminology and phrases, particularly into the next chapter where I intend to describe what could potentially be battle scenes, etc we'll just have to wait and find out. Whatever is the case I'm going to ensure that Nova plays a large role, and will still be focused around Nova.

I tried to make Nova kind of a female – badass type of character, with attitude and kickass characteristics about her this chapter. Her parka as mentioned to frequently this chapter drew heavy inspiration after Korra's (Avatar) as I felt it blended into the story quite well, not sure though.


	4. Chapter 4

Epilogue

It was now a month into what was supposed to be a week long campaign, a fortnight at most, much to Nova's dismay. Nova was distraught, she was feeling homesick by the end of the first week, the feeling started out as a slow but steady groan at the back of her mind, now it had become a deafening scream in her ears, affecting her judgement and concentration. She would spend hours upon hours working tirelessly during the day for what seemed to be eternity that is until she returned to her quarters which was her only respite, containing little bits and pieces from home to remind her of why she was there.

Calls home with you were now far and few between, given that she was away on operations and often times deployed further north closer to the pole which often meant limited access to her own private link to home. Nova also didn't have the luxury of her own quarters out in the field, often times forced into sharing quarters with other officers, further reducing the amount of privacy she needed. But these were all aspects all too familiar with her, she had experienced all of this before, but this time she knew that circumstances were different. Nova felt more mature, having a sense of purpose in her life in knowing that she had people to protect, people that were important to her, relationships which meant things to her, all of which were all things that she had never concerned her previously.

Nova's alarm rang out across her room, sat by her bedside as she lazily batted away at it as a futile attempt to try to turn it off. Moments later she awoke suddenly, raising herself into an upright position in bed, with the alarm still ringing she remembered the purpose of the early alarm which she had set for herself the night before. Nova was at a forward operating base, and today was to be the day she participated in a large scale raid of a Zerg hive cluster about 50 klicks North. Luckily for Nova, this forward operating base just so happened to be large enough to allow her to have her own quarters, as she began her morning routine as it has always been her top priority no matters how busy the day was planning to be.

Upon opening the door to her quarters, with the sun rising in the East it shone brightly into her eyes, forcing her to squint to see her Lt had too woken up early and awaited for her outside her quarters. Before he managed to say anything Nova decided to have the first word in "Is it normally this bright this early? And Lt you know I don't take anything to read before I have my coffee" and with that she closed the door behind her, cloaked and moved with a sense of purpose towards the base's makeshift canteen area. At first the Lt wasn't sure on whether or not he should be following her footprints she was leaving in the snow or not but after several more steps he figured she wasn't in the mood. Drawing closer to winter this planet had strange day-night cycles particularly towards the northern and southern poles of the planet, which meant for longer days and shorter nights.

In her mind, cloaking on base had to beneficial aspects to it, when she wasn't in any particular mood to talk to anyone she didn't have to, and secondly could be used to avoid blank stares followed up by forced salutations by the large number of Marines on her way to wherever she was going. This particular morning she had decided that she wasn't having either of the above and didn't uncloak until she was sat down on her own table in the back of the officers lounge, much to the shock of her fellow officers. Going over the mission briefing in her head and looking over detailed notes on her tablet she knew that this one was going to be a crucial one.

Over the past month the Zerg attacks on northern colonies were growing more and more brazen, attacking larger and larger settlements and overrunning local groups of militia and law enforcement. Today's mission entailed the early stages of a coordinated attack effort to reclaim the largest colony this far north of the parallel. What made this raid particularly tough was the presence of Infestors which meant a large number of infected Terrans were going to be in the area. With the area being only lost weeks prior, a sizeable amount of the infected to be expected to still be "active". Nova is to lead a team of ghosts into the area before anything happens, calling in precision strikes on important ground assets of the Zerg with assets of the first and second fleet along with Air Cavalry on standby. Secondary objectives were to eliminate any overlord clusters seen in the area and eliminate any Infestors as priority one targets above other Zerg units in the Area of Operations.

The primary AO was to be a city named New Castle Rock, a city noted for how close it lies to the northern pole. Primarily a tourist destination often visited mostly by tourists during the colder months. Going over her papers, Nova details the location of the sky scrapers with recent high resolution images of what was now a creep infested city, noting down which towers were still standing as well as which ones were ideal positions to give the best coverage of the city. In Nova's eyes, accomplishing all set tasks of the mission, including secondary targets were always necessary, she went so far as to reading the minds of her superiors to ensure that there weren't any other tasks needed to be accomplished that may have been withheld from her, even though that was strictly prohibited. Finishing her coffee she headed over the armoury with her C-20A rifle in tow with the intention of getting more than what was enough in terms of ammunition, "just in case" she thought to herself with a grin. Nova wasn't too particularly fond of carrying 25mm shells for the grenade launcher attachment, she had always felt that a well-placed shot with the gauss rifle was more than sufficient for most things the Zerg had to offer, particularly in this urban environment from a high angle.

Reclaiming this city was Valerian's idea, once again a part of his hearts and minds campaign on this planet, he needed to secure the largest city on the parallel to leverage his way to winning the campaign. Valerian had specifically tasked Nova the task of leading of the clandestine strike to be carried out by a number of ghosts, it was the only Ghost he could trust similar to his late father. Nova and the ghosts were to be loaded on board several orbiting battlecruisers orbiting the planet, infil by means of drop pods precisely 1 klick away from the AO and egress into the city and reach predefined points of interest in the city and call in air support on targets of interest. SOCOM were to be heading the operation the moment the ghosts touched deck on the ground, while Fleetcom were to ensure the ongoing covering fire provided by air assets. The Ghosts would enter the city after a substantial siege laid upon the city by air assets moments before entry. The idea behind such a move was to try to cause a large degree of confusion and disarray in order to draw attention away from the presence of the Ghosts en route to their locations of interest.

Nova sat in her drop pod quietly, normally she tried to keep her mind clear and mission focussed but today she found it particularly difficult to do so. She had a lot on her mind, but knew this wasn't the time to let her emotions get the better of her. Nova pulled out an image of the family which she tucked underneath her arm guard and kept on her person at all times as a memory of who she was now and why she was fighting. She was a changed woman, once cold apathetic and indifferent about most things, she was now someone with purpose warm and compassionate where appropriate. You had noted this change in her upon first meeting her, comparing what she was then and now you could be mistaken into thinking these were two separate people, but the reality was that Nova had two sides to her, a professional side which involved a cold shoulder approach to things, but also a much warmer side to her she had around family and the few friends she had.

Suddenly Spaulding's voice came across the intercom overhead "This is your captain speaking, Ghosts prepare for infil in ETA 5 mikes". With that Nova caressed her rifle, and tapped her bolt catch release pin on her rifle causing the bolt to lock into the place, making an audible "snap" in doing so, her gloved finger straightening out over the magazine well. Placing the Rifle's butt stock against the floor between her legs, Nova rested her forehead against the barrel and let out a silent prayer, she wasn't too much of the spiritual type but she left like it was the right thing to do this time. Looking back up at the time display in her drop pod she noted one minute left until drop, notoriously Spaulding was known to drop early so she braced herself for the descent, she decided to remain standing through the drop, swinging her rifle across her chest with barrel pointed into the floor. She gripped tightly against the hand railings in the pod as the pod began its initial separation from the ship, violently engaging the on board thrusters ensuring the landing occurs in the correct place.

During the descent Nova looks out the window to see the large amount of plasma being spewed forth out of the fleets in orbit towards the AO, some narrowly missing some of the disembarking drop pods, not that the words danger close meant anything to Spaulding. She was sure that if Spaulding had his way, he would nuke the city from orbit just as he did the other small towns in previous campaigns. This time Valerian had specifically instructed Spaulding to show restraint, wanting the city "intact" as much as possible which ruled out the rule of nuking the city into a pile of molten metal. This battle had to be won with eyes and ears on the ground and precision, as much precision as Yamato cannon strikes and carpet bomb strafing of Banshee's could provide.

Just before hitting the deck, the pod was programmed to slow its descent into the ground by engaging opposing directional thrusters, softening the landing drastically, allowing the outgoing forces to suffer little to no impact related injuries or concussions. Nova's pod plummeted closer to the ground, she felt the secondary thrusters engage which made her sling her gun into her hands and point the barrel towards the ground ready to be lifted up immediately after the drop pod's walls collapsed on the surface. The pod hit the deck with a loud thud which briefly shook the cabin before the outer shell seemingly lightly exploded at the hinges, revealing Nova who quickly lifted her gun up in anticipation some degree of a Zerg welcoming party. To her surprise there wasn't a Zerg presence at all where they landed, Nova quickly then slid down her visor to ensure with her suits on board computer read similar results. Upon confirming what she saw and sensed with her mind, she turned around to see her squad of Ghosts forming up behind her.

With her squad in front of her, Nova could sense that some members of her squad were more experienced than others, all in all including her, the squad consisted of 8 of them. The task ahead on paper appeared to be a simple one, reach positions in the city under the suppressive fire of the orbiting battle cruisers, it all sounded to simple but Nova didn't distract herself with the intricacies of the mission now, she ordered her Ghost's forward. Their suits allowed them to move at a bristling speed for short periods of time, instead of having short bursts of speed, Nova had decided to move at a steadier rate which could be sustained but nevertheless quickly. The thought of moving while cloaked crossed Nova's mind but she thought against it on second thought because of the suppressive fire being lashed out by the Battlecruisers in orbit.

Minutes later Nova and her team were positioned at the City boundaries, she reported to Valerian directly that the first phase of the operation was complete. With the second phase of the operation Nova had decided that she would split the group into pairs to secure 4 separate buildings in the city, assigning each pair a name, having no time to get to know her squad she blindly organized them into pairs and assigned them alpha, bravo, Charlie accordingly, with her group being assigned "Nova". Nova hastily rushed the pairs off to their positions, grabbing her partner by the arms and rushing over the cities trench into what was the outer rim of the city, primarily comprised of slums and small businesses.

The pair progressed through the city blocks with brisling speed, the battlecruisers overhead had ceased fire to allow the Ghosts to progress the city without the fear of blue on blue contact. The ceasefire at the moment the ghosts moved into position was intended to allow the ghosts a window of opportunity to move into their positions with as little disruption from the Zerg as possible, but as Nova quickly discovered, the Zerg had begun moving far sooner than expected. Nova quickly held up her inexperienced Ghost partner as they were moving through a building en route to their target building. A small pack of Zerglings were roaming outside and overhead overlords had begun slowly rising into the sky above. Nova could sense the fear in her partner, to stop her from showing fear, Nova decided to try to make small talk her with, finding out her background even though Nova was well aware of such details through mind reading. She was an inexperienced, fresh out of the academy Ghost, who was assigned to Nova's mission because of her promising academy results, she was a PI 6 which didn't account too much since she was paired with Nova. As they sat silently inside the building, the small Zerg force passed them but Nova wasn't happy with letting them go.

The pair began moving upstairs, working their way up to the roof of the building Nova marked the cluster of Zerglings with her laser designator on her rifle and called in a Banshee carpet bombing as she fired 3 rapid shots into the overlord hovering above them. Three Banshee's rapidly flew overhead in and let loose their Blacklash rocket pods onto the cluster, causing significant splash damage and eliminating the cluster with relative ease. With the gained momentum and boost of confidence in her partner, Nova pushed forward towards the objective building. Crossing the city street which was covered in remnants of Creep spread across the road the pair rapidly moved from building to building, being careful to not attract any unnecessary attention along the way. Upon entering one building Nova sensed something particularly strange and decided that it was within their best interests to investigate.

Finding the building's stairwell leading to the basement, the pair cautiously began creeping down the steps slowly in stealth. The basement was almost entirely dark, with no power running through the building as the power conduits outside were severed. The air began to suddenly become warmer, damper and more humid as if the basement was in a completely different atmosphere to what was only one story above. Through their visors Nova began to see something at the end of the tunnel as they drew closer to it, what looked like calcified elongated teeth sporadically spread outwards from an opening in a wall, it was a Nydus Worm. Nova swapped to Thermal vision which showed signs of relatively fresh tracks of Hydralisk slime on the floor. Nova took a moment to more deeply analyse the tracks leading towards the Worm's opening, she found it particularly strange as she nor the other groups had detected the presence Hydralisks in the city thus far, air assets had also confirmed that they suffered little to no resistance upon entering orbit which further backed the idea that the Zerg had not deployed Hydralisks on the ground. Judging by the relatively fresh tracks Nova had decided it was in their best interest to swiftly exit the building and call down several Yamato cannon strikes upon the building in an attempt to kill off the Worm.

Nova signalled to her partner who was securing the stairwell to exit the building, Nova quickly followed soon after as the pair made it to street level. Nova knew that they had to gain distance on the building rapidly before she could call in the strike. "This is Nova, requesting successive Yamato cannon strike on my position delay ten mikes, how copy over" she reported to the fleet which were now in high orbit over the planet. Upon receiving the go ahead, the pair moved as fast as possible away from the building after placing down a strobe for the Battlecruisers identify the building. As the pair exited the area they received a transmission from one of the other groups, "Mikey's down, there aren't any remains, Roach got him, proceeding to objective area solo". To Nova it was the harsh reality that was what they were doing, but to her partner Nova could clearly sense the amount of distress she was in. Nova read her mind as the pair traversed the urban environment, it was the first loss of a comrade she had ever experienced, even though she wasn't anywhere near to the scene she was particularly sensitive and began to show signs of emotion.

As the pair laid low on one of the higher levels of an apartment building overwatching the building containing the Worm, preparing to do Battle Damage Assessment; Nova was indecisive about asking her partner about the recent events which had transpired. Instead, Nova decided to take the more subtle approach and began trying to ask her partner about her upbringing, background and other such information to draw her attention away from what was currently clouding her mind. She took her helmet off and removed her visor and pulled back her mask, revealing long brown hair and a tan complexion, visibly distressed her cheeks appeared lightly flustered and she appeared disinterested, maintaining a focused gaze on the building a few blocks away. Nova delved back to her past, if she was what she was 2 years ago she would have never been this concerned about her team mate, but she had changed emotionally drastically since then, into a much more warmer and empathetic towards others. But that didn't mean that she showed the warm and friendly side of herself to everyone, she was just as cold and apathetic towards the vast majority of who she came into contact with daily.

After a period of silence, moments before the strike was due the silence was broken. In a shaky and shy tone, "My name is Shae, I was born on Tarsonis but was taken away from my family at a young age by a Wrangler sent to get me". Nova sat and listened intently, trying to not maintain eye contact as Shae was still fixated on the building, so as to not provoke or intimidate her. "My family wasn't particularly rich, nor particularly poor, Normal I guess, I was a sibling among a household of 5 other children, my parents weren't particularly too concerned about the Wrangler and if anything was ecstatic that he was going to take me away" she said with a deep and heartfelt tone to her voice, which had reached out to Nova. "I read their minds the moment the Wrangler stepped through the door, filled with happiness and relief that one of their own were going to be taken away from them. I on the other hand was anything but, I enjoyed my simple life as it was progressing through school. The wrangler had let me find out about all I wanted to know about what was going to become my future at the Ghost academy, as we were leaving Tarsonis, leaving behind everything I knew and loved" Nova began to draw similarities between her upbringing and hers, most notably the moments relating to the indoctrination process which every ghost undergoes with their Wrangler.

It was generally understood that if you were important enough to get a Wrangler specifically assigned to your case that the Directors themselves at the academy had shown a particular interest in you. It was also relatively common place that the Wrangler had a high success ratio in turning over persons of interest, with the full extent of the law behind them, they essentially were given executive privileges to ensure the capture of their person of interest, by any means necessary. Typically the children were young enough that they had no say in the matter, nor did their family for that matter as any form of struggle would be swiftly met with force. This practice often resulted in kicking and screaming individuals entering the doors of the ghost academy, a practice not often talked about or detailed in any account as the lucrative academy covered itself in a veil of plausible deniability. Most individuals who pass through the academy gates were most often commoners, people who had no significant importance and thus generally did not receive any interest by the public abroad. Upon leaving the academy, frequent memory wipes ensured that the individuals would have no prior memory of the past lives, becoming fully indoctrinated into the indefinite serving of the dominion. However, the practice of frequent memory wipes had since became lax, particularly with the influx of fresh recruits and numbers post the Tarsonis events, it became too costly to maintain the need to memory wipe each and every individual after each and every mission, to a degree where it was almost entirely optional on the individual as to whether or not they felt the need to receive a memory wipe.

A period of silence ensued, which was abruptly ended by the oncoming of several Yamato cannon blasts landing in the general vicinity of the building. The battlecruisers were generally known for having terrible aim with the blasts but this time a large number of them landed in onto the building. A loud groan rang out across the city as the worm extended its body out of the ground and collapsed onto several buildings, coming to a rest along what was a large city block, it's body bloody and messy missing several large portions of its body and receiving scorch marks all throughout. "Good effect on target, Nova out" she reported before looking back at Shae who had appeared to picked herself back together, with a much more determined look on her face now than before, much to Nova's relief. The pair were now only about three city blocks away from their objective building, a tall high rise tower with a large amount of visibility over the city, one that was still standing allowing for ideal conditions for calling in accurate strikes as well as serving as a vantage point on Overlords in the air and Infestors on the ground.

"Are you okay now?" Nova said with a warm expression on her face looking intently at Shae who was just a foot shorter than her. With a bubblier expression on her face, Shae intently looked back at Nova and nodded with a grin on her face. Nova and Shae rapidly descended down the vantage point building, on their way down they had noted the substantial rise in presence of Zerg on the ground, it was then that they received a call from the Fleet above them "Be advised, we're detecting a large presence of Zerg fliers rapidly moving into the city from the North of the planet, we're going to engage as many as we can but they seem to be moving at great speed towards the city". The Zerg counter attack was now in full swing, Roaches were tunnelling out of city streets, packs of fast moving Zerglings were sprinting up and down the streets and Hydralisks were now slithering rapidly through the creep highways into staging areas. Alpha and Bravo teams had already reached their destinations, Charlie squad weren't responding and were presumed KIA which left Nova's squad the last one to reach their objective, the furthest one into the City from their point of infiltration.

Silently the pair crept across the City streets in stealth, being careful their presence wasn't detected by Overlords, Nova had taken out as many as she could upon exiting the building but she was powerless to stop the ones that were spawning in from the abundance of larvae in the city or the ones that rose out of the underground network of subterranean tunnels that were dug by the Zerg. Nova had displayed a particular disliking towards Zerg forces by psionically taking out lone or small numbers of them that they came across or any which impeded the way to the objective. Soon enough the presence of Mutualisks in the Air signified that air support would have to wait as the battle for the skies above was being fought. The skies lit up with flashes of white and red, shining through the clouds the Battlecruisers let loose their Anti-Aircraft laser batteries and point defence turrets to deal with the flock of incoming Mutualisks and Corrupters from the planet. With the increased presence of Zerg fliers came a mass of Overlords and Overseers which remained close to the surface of the planet to coordinate the larger numbers of Zerg forces in the area. Seeing this Nova knew they had to move towards the building at a faster pace, she swung her rifle around her back and moved at a blindingly fast speed towards the relative safety of the building, with Shae following behind her with a distance between them as Shae could not yet maintain the same speed Nova was moving at.

Nova reached the steps of the building now much before Shae could, but she had no time to turn back now and check, she entered the building which was the tallest building in the city that was still in one piece. It looked exactly like how it was pictured she thought to herself, albeit the huge gaping holes in it when the Zerg first attacked it. Nova reached the building's foyer before she realized Shae wasn't right behind her, turning back she saw a now struggling and traumatized Shae running towards the tower with everything she had left. With the Overseers coming ever so closer to the tower from the North, Nova knew she was going to be in trouble and sprinted out to try to carry her back into the building. Nova sprinted down the flight of stairs with great speed and noted mentally how far Shae was away, her visor had told her she was at the time a hundred and thirteen meters away which she knew she could cover in next to no time. Nova reached a struggling Shae but noted one of the first few overseers had begun moving towards them, she boldly uncloaked and fired several shots with her rifle into the Overseer, shredding it to pieces virtually instantly but now she found herself vulnerable and open to attack in doing so. Nova screamed at Shae to keep heading towards the building, and no matter what to not turn back for her as she lay down covering fire to allow Shae to get to relative safety inside the building. Shae took it upon herself to call for air support on the final objective, "Saturate the entire area around the building with whatever you have available! NOW!" Shae turned around to see that Nova was only now a short distance away from the flight of stairs of the building, deflecting wave after wave of oncoming Zerglings and Roaches while slowly backing towards the tower.

"ETA 1 minute, how copy" Aircav had responded to Shae but it was already too late, abiding by Nova's orders she had not opened fire when she saw a slew of Hydralisk spines flying through the air, saturating the area around Nova seemingly missing her. Nova had managed to teek away most of the spines but two had managed to slip past her as she had to deflect oncoming waves of Zerglings, screaming out in pain as one lodged into her shoulder, lodging itself in her shoulder guard but the other piercing straight through her left thigh muscle, causing her to collapse onto one side. Shae immediately let loose a volley of suppressive fire as she too had begun screaming and running towards the downed Nova who was crawling towards the building. Vikings had begun appearing on the horizon and began firing away volleys of Ripwave Missiles at the flock of Overseers and Overlords, with Banshees following closely behind as they began bombarding the Zerg forces closing in on the Ghost's position. Shae clasped her arms around Nova, manually activating her Cloaking device before activating her own and ran with all she had left towards the safety of the tower. Shae had particular difficulty with raising Nova up the stairs but the oncoming explosions caused by the carpet bombings behind her to move with even greater vigour.

Shae slowly lowered Nova down onto the cold floor of the building's Foyer area, Nova was bleeding heavily from the thigh and shoulder wounds she suffered but tried her best to remain conscious. Shae clasped her hands together and held them over Nova's thigh, a dull bright green light began to show from her arms, "Psionic healing?" Nova asked, sounding astonished "I wasn't expecting you to know how to do that…" as she said as she slowly lost consciousness, her head falling back against the wall. After doing all she could, realizing that she couldn't do all too much for the shoulder wound, she picked Nova back up and caressed her body in her arms she began to make her way on foot to the higher levels of the tower. Being careful to not cause Nova any further injuries in doing so as she made her way up the spiralling staircases which was made even more difficult as Nova had begun going in and out of consciousness. After great difficulty and completely out of breath in doing so, Shae managed to get to the 20th floor of the building and placed Nova down gently against a wall when suddenly a thought crossed her mind, it was Nova sending a telepathic message to her.

"Behind my left Armguard, below the shoulder I got hit on, I have a note, I don't make it, Shae could you give that note to the man in the picture provided" Nova opened her eyes in the process to look up at Shae, who was visibly stunned and shaken. "I-I'll try Nova, I won't let you down Nova" Shae said whole heartedly to a visibly weaker Nova and reached for her armguard to retrieve the note, showing it to Nova before placing it down the side of her leg guard. "Finish the mission" Nova said with great difficulty which made Shae rise up rapidly and ran to the nearest window "Requesting immediate med-evac for critically injured person, how copy" she said into her headset as she raised her rifle to laser designate a number of Infestors in the distance. Moments later a Medivac drop ship descended onto the top of the roof as a pair of Vikings descended onto the roof of the tower, the landing gear and ramp landed onto the roof with an audible thud as Shae turned around to Nova. A medic had departed the Medivac and began to more thoroughly tend to Nova's wounds, at first apprehensive and fearful of treating a Ghost, Shae stood behind her and did what the medic could not, Shae wrapped her arms around Nova's chest and legs and carried her onto the rooftop and placed her onto the medivac dropship. As the mission was not yet complete, Shae stayed behind and watched as the Medivac and pair of Vikings flew with great speed into the sky towards the now much closer Battlecruiser before continuing the task of marking points of interest for the orbiting Battlecruiser's Yamato cannons to destroy.

Nova arrived at the Battlecruiser's medical bay with the wound on her leg mostly sealed up and treated, luckily it had missed her Femur but had severed the Femoral artery which Shae had quickly assessed and sealed up with her Psionic Healing. The Spine in her shoulder however had caused paralytic toxins to enter Nova's body, and it was rapidly taking affect. The medical team rapidly removed the Spine and sealed up the wound, it had not penetrated all too deeply, the impact was mainly taken by the shoulder guard, it was apparent that Nova had intentionally teeked away the spines which were going to impact her to land in non-critical areas of her body. The next task was to ensure the removal of the toxin from Nova's body, which wasn't as easily accomplished and would require a long and drawn out period of close observation. Nova was sent back to Castle base, it was only officially named days ago as Highcom began having difficulty with different words used to describe the same base.

That evening you receive a call from a highly secure line as you and Delta had just finished up dinner and began washing the plates together. Delta yelled out "I'll get it!" dropping her plate abruptly into the soapy water causing it to splash soapy water into the air, much to your displeasure. "Ahuh, ahuh, ahuh, yeah sure Daddy and I aren't doing anything at the moment" Delta said relatively enthusiastically but had a concerned tone to her voice. Delta hadn't had any particularly bad dreams or night terrors the last few nights, which lulled you and Delta into a false sense of security, thinking that perhaps they had finally granted Nova's calls to bring Delta and yourself up to Castle base. Nova had been urging and arguing with Valerian specifically to be able to grant you and Delta refuge at Castle Base at least until the campaign was over but had little luck in doing so. To your surprise however, they had come far sooner than expected, Delta yelled out "Daddy there's someone at the door!" before they even knocked. Delta swung the door open as the drop ship landed in the same place it did to retrieve Nova the first time, Delta looked at it landing in awe but at this point you were pretty hard to impress, barely lifting a brow to the landing.

"Sir we think it would be within your best interests that you come with us, like right now" The Lt said, Delta had spared no time in reading his mind and knew what little details he knew about what had happened to Nova. "What happened to my mommy!" Delta screamed at him, clenching both fists and slammed them against him, demanding that he start talking, even though Delta now knew all that the Lt knew. You stood there in shock and awe, unsure what's happening you stood there further dumbfounded until the Lt realized you weren't psionic like Delta. "Sir, I'm afraid your partner has been severely injured in the field of battle and we are now granting your requests to go see her effective immediately" the Lt said in an authoritative tone, you could tell he was the same guy that was sent to retrieve her the first time. Unsure of how to react you pick up a teary Delta off of the floor and calmed her down as best you could. "Can we uhh, get a minute to pack things or is that uhh, not necessary" you asked in a muddled manner to which the Lt reassuringly said "You can take as long and as much as you want sir, but be advised that I have been sent to your premises to retrieve you with a degree of upmost urgency" and with that you quickly proceeded upstairs and gathered a few necessities before heading back down stairs "Do I have enough time to call her school and tell them she'll be away?" to which the Lt grunted and seemed even more impatient. "I'll uhh, take that as umm, no then" with Delta in one arm and a bag of necessities you quickly rushed out the door to board the awaiting drop ship. Upon being seated a teary eyed Delta wrapped her legs around your waist and arms around your neck and dug her face into your chest. "I hope mommy's okay" she whispered quietly. Lifting her teary face up you nuzzle her and thought "I hope so too Delta, it's getting late, why don't you get some sleep Delta" to which she nodded and gently fell asleep in your arms.

It was dark outside when you landed, little to no wind to speak of and a light snow was starting to form as you proceeded towards the entrance of the base. Most things now didn't quite surprise you but the sheer magnitude of the protected gate made your jaw drop, mainly how large and thick it was. After a brisk walk through upper levels of the facility to make your way to the elevator which took you all the way to the ground floor of the facility. You haven't seen anything like it before your whole life, but then remembered why you were here to begin with, remembering Delta's scream in your head made you all the more concerned and worried what had happened to Nova. "She's kind of freaked everyone out on the base here', only the doctors go in and even then they want out soon after they get in" the Lt exclaimed as you walked towards her quarters. Upon reaching the far end of the level, you reach Nova's quarters the front of which has been all but covered entirely in psionic padding. The Lt waved a key card onto a scanner located near the door, causing it to swing inwards revealing a darkened room. The lights in the hallway did little to light up the interior of the room only managing to show up to the foot of the bed "The lights are over her-" You cut the Lt off as he reached in to turn on the room's lights "I think she left the lights off for a reason, don't you Lt?". Placing your bag of necessities on the floor you quietly wandered into the room and placed the now fast asleep Delta into Nova's bed placing her against Nova's body being careful so as to not wake either of them. You turn on the much smaller bedside lamp in the room to provide just enough lighting to see your way around.

It was filled with ornaments from home, scattered around the room were pictures of you and Delta as well as some of her and your own possessions which she held dear to. On a chair to the side of the room lay your pillow which you picked up and placed behind her head. Nova had IV drips stood by her bedside as she lay in bed asleep, on bedside you noted a log book and decided it was in your best interests to read its contents to gain a better understanding of what had happened to her, as it seemed nobody you had talked to thus far knew exactly what had happened to Nova. Even the log was worded very vaguely as to exactly what she had or what had happened to her, but the most important points you noted was that she was in fact not currently in a deep asleep, but rather the anaesthetics were predicted to wear off sometime tomorrow morning. Deeply concerned by some of the contents of the log you slip into her bed, Nova was still in her Ghost suit as the medical staff didn't dare remove it which also meant that it detailed the injuries she suffered. Deciding against finding out all the answers right now you decided that it would be better to just wait it out until morning, you slid your arm all the way around to Delta as your other gripped tightly against Nova's hand being careful not to push against the needle near her wrist.

Longest chapter yet (I think, if I'm not mistaken), Not sure if I'm going to make Shae a returning character, will definitely be back next chapter, I don't think I do a very good job at depicting battle or fight scenes, might re-read some portions of the two starcraft ghost novels to get a better idea of how better writers do it (haha). I currently have some vague ideas with what I want to come, but at the moment I think I've kind of dug myself a hole in terms of where I want the story to progress, from now on I think I'm going to spend more time in each individual chapter and try to produce more detailed ones, the last two I think I pumped out in a single day which resulted in much shorter length. As always reviews help out a lot, and gives me ideas as to where to go the series, I'm very open to ideas with where the story goes, if you have ideas send a PM or write a review and I'll definitely look into it c:


	5. Chapter 5

It was pre-dawn when Nova woke up from her anaesthesia induced sleep, she had a particularly bad past experience with waking up from deep sleep. As such Nova awoke in an alarmed state, knowing that she had not willingly fallen asleep the last time she was awake, the anaesthesia was fairly quick to work out and she felt a great stiffness in all of her limbs, she lay still unsure of how to react, darting her eyes side to side rapidly to no avail as the room was pitch black. As she slowly regained feeling and control throughout her body, Nova tilted her head side to side to get a better view of where she was or how she got there, to her surprise at the same moment she began regaining feeling of most of her upper chest and realized that you and Delta were clasped fairly tightly against her upper body which would have explained a large amount of stiffness on her chest.

Your warm breath as well as Delta's gently blew against Nova's neck, she tried to make a sound but only now did it set in that her throat was parched. By now she had regained most of her sense of control and feeling to her limbs, Nova began to writhe in discomfort in an attempt to wake the two of you up. You were the first to notice that Nova had begun moving, dazed and confused unsure as to whether or not you had imagined or dreamt of physical contact you quietly called out Nova's name to which she replied with a faint yelp in pain and discomfort before making further attempts to get up. As Nova squirmed and wriggled around in discomfort you tried to ensure her that she was safe, but she had made it apparent that her concerns were of something else. "Mommy's thirsty" an equally as dazed and sluggish Delta said as she slowly rubbed her eye and moved hair out of her face, you then swiftly got out of bed and quickly grabbed Nova's mug on the table and filled it up with tap water from the bathroom and gave it to her.

Nova ravenously gulped down what was in the mug before she signalled for more, soon enough she had regained the ability to talk again albeit with a husky voice. You decided that it would be in her best interest not to force herself to talk given her condition but she tried with all the effort she could "Where is Shae?" she asked with great difficulty and a very concerned look on her face. It had only occurred to her then and there that the both of you were completely left out on the details of the mission, Nova began forcing herself out of bed and began making her way to the door in desperation to find answers as to what was the fate of her partner Shae. It had only been just short of a day since the start of the mission, but the Ghost's mission end was supposed to be marked by the rushing in of conventional ground forces to reclaim New Castle Rock from the Zerg. Nova teeked the door to her quarter's wide open to retrieve her tablet which she knew would contain all the information she needed.

Little did Nova know that the mission had in fact already finish and with her medivac the few remaining Ghosts in the city had finished most of the tasks she had assigned them. To Nova's surprise she found Shae sat down outside her quarters, with her back against the wall and asleep as if she was standing guard over the room. Unable to pick Shae off of the floor due to her still stiff arms not allowing her to do fairly simple tasks, Nova called the both of you outside, lazily and in the dark you and Delta stumbled about into the lightened doorway only to see someone you had never met before but clearly Nova displayed a large degree of interest and importance to. Nova ushered you over and whispered for you to pick her up and bring her inside as she went about finding the whereabouts of her tablet which was apparently missing from its usual location.

You caressed her into your arms, with an arm wrapped around her legs and another around her lower back you took care to ensure that first and foremost that she wouldn't wake up in the process of carrying her inside. You noted that she also was in a Ghost suit, she still had her plating on which you found unusual but Delta began piecing parts of the puzzle in her head mentally as she had tried to gather as much information about Nova's relationship with the girl. Moments later Delta pieced together the puzzle in her head and formed a vague outline of what she thought had happened, but much of the story was still vague and ambiguous as Delta wasn't so sure about reading the mind of someone she didn't know just yet. Just at that moment Nova returned but she was in the company of the Lt from earlier who was yapping away about how he thought that Nova wasn't in any condition to not only be out of her bed but be out and about, Nova wasn't having any of that though and teeked the door shut rapidly after entering the room leaving the Lt sealed outside.

The door slamming shut had awoken Shae from her sleep, Delta stared at her fondly with a broad smile across her face as she placed her hand onto her forehead which was giving her a severe headache as she had been awoken midway through a deep sleep period. Nova leaned in and wrapped her arms around Shae affectionately before whispering into her ear "I'm so glad you're okay" before ducking her head down a deep and heartfelt thank you for saving her life. It was only now that Shae had realized fully where she was returned Nova's gratitude, replying with "Thanks for turning back for and risking your life for mine" locking eyes with Nova's and smiling reassuringly before throwing her arms too around Nova. Regaining her voice, Nova leaned out and introduced you and Delta to Shae and vice versa; Delta was particularly joyous of the occasion, as Nova hinted towards an addition towards the symbolic family provided that Shae accepted the notion.

Having little to no contact with her past life prior to entering the Ghost academy, Shae lived a life of ignorant bliss to which allowed her to express her emotions freely from a young age and as she progressed through the academy, her attitude remained the same. Much like Nova however, and most Ghosts she too had a more serious and professional persona which she displayed while on missions or likewise other similar situations. Shae's personality heavily reflected upon a very fierce and independent persona who wouldn't fret to speak her mind which lead to a tough, impatient and headstrong character. Due to her personality she quickly rose to the ranks of team captain in her very first year, virtually unheard of as a feat which also meant that she had lead senior members at the academy on numerous occasions, including actual live fire training missions. Shae's preceptor was forced into graduating her a year early from the academy with the events of the oncoming battle, finishing her training officially by the end of her second year, a feat which had only previously been accomplished by Nova albeit under different circumstances.

Psionically however, Shae possessed no substantial traits to her name which would allow her to be treated in anyway different to anybody else. Her PI rating of 6 placed her virtually on average levels with her peers, she displayed no specific talents throughout her time at the academy other than the ability to conduct and perform Psionic Healing which was indeed an uncommon ability to possess but was much to the disappointment of her Preceptor which hoped for much more psionic talent in her. Shae's preceptor had hoped she had talents which would correspond well with her talent of leadership and other characteristics but instead, only had the ability to provide support to others, seemingly the opposite of her personality and likeness. Nevertheless she was crowned the academy's honour graduate of her class, which denoted the highest overall performance of any graduating member of her class that year. As such she was high on the list amongst her fellow graduates of not only her platoon but of the entire task force's Ghost operatives to be selected to undertake Nova's mission.

Nova had only now however realized how hungry she was, and how little energy she had because of it. Shae had sensed this and detailed her accounts with the Doctors treating Nova, "The Lt outside was right, you were supposed to remain bedridden Nova, they need to keep you starved to ensure all of the toxin from the Hydralisk spine leaves your body". Suddenly feeling weak after over exerting herself for so long, Nova fell backwards into your arms. Nova remained alert and conscious but her body just wasn't cooperating with what she wanted to do, alarming her but she knew there was nothing else she could do, and that the treatment was for her own benefit. You place her on your lap and with what little strength she had left wrapped her arms and legs around your back and slumped her head onto your shoulder and rested. Moments later the Lt had returned with the medical team in tow, mainly to plead their case about what you were now fully aware of. Loudly knocking on the door, Shae had answered it from the inside, with the lights dimmed in the foreground she placed a finger over her lips and hushed them away from the door, closing it in the process. Nova grinned and clenched tighter around your body as you fondled away with her long hair which hadn't yet been tied together yet, clipping away split ends as she had neglected to do so in quite a while.

Nova remained largely out of the action for the rest of the week under doctors' orders, this time she had no choice but to refuse as she lay in bed for most of the day, following a largely liquid based diet which could easily be digested but contained very little sustenance which also in turn caused her to lose weight both of fat and muscle mass. By the end of the week when she was allowed to finally return to a more solids based diet she relished at the meals you prepared her, worried that she might be fed some of the bases MRE supplies which she had displayed a particular disliking to. Both Delta and Shae were both deployed to several other operations during Nova's recovery time, much to Nova's dismay but understood Socom's decision in doing so. Mostly day long operations however, which meant that the two were often times home for dinner that night at the base, it was a home away from home and luckily Nova's quarters on the base were just large enough to accommodate the four of you snugly.

It was another two weeks before Nova begun to feel like her former self again, undergoing intensive physiotherapy and essentially redoing a large part of the Ghost physical training program before she was convinced herself that she had fully recovered and had returned to her former physical capabilities. Instead of repairing her armour plating Socom instead sent the most recent version of their plating, the same variant Shae donned which secretly made both Nova and Delta green with envy. The plating was largely similar to the older variant albeit a different material was used, and several parts became further slim-lined as reports from the field suggested that improvements could be made in terms of weight and general toughness of the plating. The material had differed from Nova's previous plating, darker in colour and appearing to have a matte finish instead of the smooth surface present on the older model, additionally reworking to the wrists and ankle sections also allowed for greater mobility. Nova was more than happy to accept her new plating as her old plating she had received during her time at the academy was beginning to show signs of aging due to the battle scars and indentations, Nova was also sure to request a set for Delta who she knew equally relished at the chance to receive a new set.

This is/was intended to be a short chapter, mainly to introduce the idea of Shae, her characteristics, abilities, what she's capable of and key traits. This chapter and the next were originally planned to be one but I figured due to the length of the following chapter and the fact that it arcs off into a completely different point – idea that it deserved to be split into two separate chapters. I feel that Shae's character adds depth and taste, in that she's different in almost every way from Nova and Delta, has a much more reliance on physical prowess and power, huge confidence in herself and not in psionic powers which will be detailed further on in the story. I didn't mention it specifically, but it's implied that Shae is very, very much so physically strong and toned; even more so than Nova or Delta. Shae may or may not be modelled after Korra from LoK *cough cough*


	6. Chapter 6

Months had passed since, the ground war over the planet had all but ceased, with the Zerg threat deemed neutralized life went on, despite the ongoing air war which continued in the skies above. The Protoss fleet which had intentionally delayed their arrival to the planet until after the defeat of the Zerg was timed in an attempt to wipe out what was assumed to be a dazed and confused Terran fleet. The commencement of the air war also meant that most of the conventional ground forces were no longer needed, thus alleviating the need for Nova to be present at military installations which allowed you and your family to return home. However, that didn't mean that they weren't expected to not conduct any further missions, a series of much smaller day long operations ensued to ensure the Protoss warships that were shot out of the sky were "secure" as Nova had described it to you. Nova spared you a lot of the nitty gritty details as she figured informing you of them would only ramp up your concern levels about what the girls were doing. The end of the battle was said to be within sight and within arm's reach, all very assuring words to ensure public confidence; Part of Valerian's effort to win hearts and minds as the war was drawing to a close, much longer than he had anticipated or informed of by his various heads of defence.

Not that any of that lay heavily on your minds, life went on regardless of the events in the skies above. Delta was under executive orders to remain out of school, her importance as one of the few ghosts that was local to the area was considered paramount as she could be deployed virtually at a moment's notice, something a large number of other ghosts could not. Similarly both Shae and Nova needed to both be on hand at any point as well, but Nova had been ensured after a large deal of quarrelling with both Socom and Jsoc that one of the girls needed to be home with you at any given time, only allowing two of the three girls to be deployed away from home at any given time, undisputable. Nova had always been concerned for your safety in particular as you were essentially vulnerable to attack, she didn't make it crystal clear to you that she had felt this way, but over time you had gradually picked up on it but had made it a point not to bring it up with Nova. In Nova's eyes she had used the analogy of a chess board to the family, with Nova being the Queen Chess piece and you were the King, both the girls were simply rooks. You were the pillar which supported the family, holding up the family and supporting it and was thus held with an equally high regard as any of the other pieces on the board.

Both Nova and Delta were deployed away from home, leaving you at home for the first time alone with Shae. The two of you had yet to have a chance to be heavily bonded with one another, with Shae's birthday this coming weekend and the schedules for both Nova and Delta forcefully been made empty, you had decided that now would be a better time than ever to go out to the markets to find out what Shae had a particular liking and interest in. You had long known what likings and cravings Nova and Delta both had, but Shae seemed to like everything just about equally and seemed to display a sense of equal delight in just about anything she was prepared. In seeing that it would draw the two of you directly into civilian areas, Shae had decided that it would be best that she wear civilian clothing juxtaposed to her Ghost equipment so as to not draw any unnecessary attention towards you or her. Shae believed largely on a degree of self-reliance in terms of self-defence but remembered Nova's stance on the matter and opted to conceal carry a sidearm on her person.

The pair of you headed off to the markets via public transport, much to Shae's dismay who would have much rather taken alternative means (Which she almost exclusively meant drop ship). Nevertheless you had managed to convince her as the sun was high in the sky and the mid-day sun brought much warmer weather than recent days. You were sure to lock the door behind you and close the gate as a gusty cool breeze blew across the front yard. Shae donned a parka very similar to Nova's with a pair of fairly loose fitting pants and simple boots, wanting to retain her mobility should anything happen. Arriving at the market, departing the bus you both took in a deep breath as the scent of various different street food vendors wafted through the wind, much to your delight but Shae showed an expression of indifference. Moving from store to store at a steady pace, checking on her as to whether or not she showed any signs of interest in anything, Shae maintained her usual demeanour appearing relatively disinterested that is, until the two of you reached the food court. Figuring that she was generally unmoved by particular or specific ingredients you had decided to move onto the Food court which was substantially more direct as the food was more directly displayed at you, already prepared for you and displayed in a much more appetizing and appealing manner. Shae's eyes lit up, showing at least some form of interest in the things you were passing, you had noted down the things she had looked to and ordered a portion of whatever it was. Eventually, returning to the sit down in the middle of the court with the numerous number of plates with various different dishes, much to your dismay there appeared to be no direct correlation between them, no distinct ingredient or style of cuisine which she had shown interest in.

As the both of you consumed and merely sampled some other dishes, it became clearer what she had an interest in and what she hadn't, sorting them apart into simple and logical go and no go piles until you had now sampled almost all the dishes on the table. Seeing as how there weren't very many to begin with, you decided to retrieve some of you own personal favourites while Shae sat down at the table to sit and pick away at some of the items in the go pile. Retrieving some of your own personal favourites some healthy and nutritious while others were anything but. Placing the plates down on the table Shae's face cringed at some of the sights, but displayed a willingness to at least try them, smiling reassuringly before picking away. Shae was fairly surprised at the flavours and general texture of the Cottage pie you had, noting that it was the most interesting dish she had tried so far which sat very well with you as it was your all-time favourite dish. With that in mind you noted down some of the other things she had shown interest in, in order to obtain a relative shopping list which all of the dishes could be prepared at home, and much healthier that what she had tried here today.

Little did you or Shae know, you were both being followed the moment you left the house. A group of cloaked Spectres had been planning your abduction during the months you had returned home. Seeing an opportunity arise as the largely inexperienced Shae was with you, who unlike Delta or Nova had limited psionic abilities. Nova's ability to virtually read the minds of anyone within such a large proximity and Delta's ability of foresight which had only been further worked on would mean a high chance of failure. Shae's limited teep abilities meant that she had to forcefully attempt to read the minds of others, unlike Nova who had almost the exact opposite issue. Delta's abilities had since been further honed upon, allowing her to no longer need to directly dream cognitively about events, she could now feel and sense imminent danger or threat to one or more of her family members. The food court was too busy of an area to make an attempt at the abduction, they needed to wait for just the right moment or in other words they needed to wait for the two of you to move to a less densely populated area of the market to draw as little attention as possible.

The spectres intended to abduct you specifically above other members of the family as they knew that the simple action in doing so would evoke a response much more substantial from Nova than if they abducted anyone else in the family, not to mention that you were probably the easiest. The plan was to not only abduct you, but to carry out their late leader's wishes to have Nova converted into a spectre. The spectres were essentially a rogue group of ghosts who underwent various procedures to make themselves far more potent than what they already were. It had now long been noted and documented that exposure to the gas Terrazine in normal Terrans would increase their PI ratings exponentially, often by a whole magnitude. It could turn normal, "regular" ghosts into much more powerful psionic warriors and further improve upon their own natural talents. The plan was that if they had managed to abduct you, and expose you to the gas Terrazine which would then in turn essentially turn you into one of them would force Nova into a position where she would be more inclined to expose herself to copious amounts of Terrazine, thus making the most powerful ghost in existence virtually even more powerful and thus an extensively useful tool to pressure the dominion.

Delta was in the middle of a field with a small team pushing into a rural farm land area when she began to feel the slight tingling sensation which rippled up her spine, this time much stronger and severe as more than just one of her family members were in danger. Delta ordered her squad to move forward and push towards the objective while she sorted out a direct link to Nova, she figured that a sensation this strong could only mean that you and Shae were in danger. Nova screamed loudly and immediately called a drop ship to take her home immediately as she too ordered her squad forward to push their objective. Delta followed suit upon reaching the downed Protoss Void Ray and ensured that the pilot was dead.

Back in the Market you two had just finished up purchasing the very last of the groceries you needed to prepare for Shae's birthday this weekend. On your way out of the last store for the day hands filled with groceries on either hand, shots rang out across the market some were distant but most were shot close to your position. Seemingly immediately after clusters of smoke grenades fell down over the store front covering the area in thick black smoke giving you no time to duck or hide from cover, you were completely exposed when they pounced. Shae's survival instincts almost immediately kicked in, she tightly clasped her hand against your mouth and a large portion of your nostrils before doing the same with her own. Realizing that the colour of the smoke wasn't standard military issue Shae knew that something was amiss. Spectres who remained cloaked ontop of the store leapt down onto you, with what was now only one free arm she reached for her side arm but was too late. The spectres had read Shae's mind and already grabbed her side arm before she had the chance. Shae wasn't ready to go down without a fight though, she quickly rolled you under one of the market stalls before freeing her other hand and holding her breath. Shae closed her eyes and telepathically guided her way through the smoke trying to engage the targets around her, with her back against the stall you were under.

Shae fought bravely against vastly superior odds, spectres who were equipped with thermal vision soon over ran her as her lungs gave way, on the verge of collapsing finally gasping for air to only breathe in the smoke which turned out to be a fast acting anaesthetic. Shae felt her knees quivering and giving way, she slowly backed down and tried to throw herself over you as a last ditch effort, little did she know that you were already unconscious from the smoke as well. The spectres decided against taking Shae as well, prioritizing you and rapidly exited the market soon after.

Shae awoke much later in the evening at a public hospital with a teary eyed Delta by her bedside, by now it had become apparent to Shae what had happened. An expressionless Nova stood by at the door, obtaining what other details the vague police report had about the incident. Nova remained calm and level headed, knowing that fear and stress would invoke the others to do the same and that's what she was trying to avoid. Shae was released from the hospital soon after, spirits were low and Nova remained in her room the whole night skipping dinner with the girls. Shae could sense the disappointment in the air, even though Delta had assured her that she had done everything she could to prevent what happened, Shae still felt particularly guilty about what happened, and everyone's emotions definitely wasn't helping.

The Spectres wasted no time, they knew what they wanted and had a clearly defined mission objective, capturing you was only the first step in their mission. Their next objective was to evoke fear as a response followed by demands, specific demands in order to obtain the prize that so many of their predecessors could not achieve, the persuasion of Nova to become a Spectre. They began filming you, blindfolded they began trying to taunt you into fear by shooting at you but barely missing; they knew that direct violence or death would not evoke the right response from Nova, they wanted her to join them, not spite them so they did everything they could try and evoke fear and suffering in you. Little did they know however, that through extensive time with Nova that she had prepared you for situations similar to this. Knowing that you were the weakest link on the chain Nova had to prepare you for the reality that was the potential for you to be targeted as an abductee. Infuriated by this the spectres turned to brute force and controlled violence in an attempt to evoke a response, still remaining strong willed you stood your ground as they physically thrashed you about, punching and kicking away at your body, finally ending the clip with one of the female spectres digging her heel into your torso causing immense pain.

Tensions were high that night at home, Nova remained in her room the whole night, remaining perfectly silent she sat slumped over the foot of the bed. The bedside light was all that lit the room and it was set to its dimmest setting which gave the room a darker feel, it also cast a shadow of Nova against the wall in front of her. Shae peered in from the upstairs living room, she had never seen Nova like this before; She mustered enough courage to mutter out "N-Nova are you okay?" to which Nova remained completely still and silent. Moments later Nova calmly said out "Shae, I know we're friends, I don't want that to change, but right now, you really need to leave me alone" with her tone picking up towards the end. Shae slowly backed away from the door, closing it behind her gently before walking back to her room which she shared with Delta. Delta being a cheerful bundle of joy that she is reassured her that Nova would be fine, and Delta was adamant that everything would be okay.

Early the next morning a highly encrypted message was delivered to the house, virtually untraceable and from an anonymous source, the message contained a faint and vague video footage of your time spent with the spectres thus far. The footage was raw and unedited taken in a dark environment which made it all that much more unclear, but what was clear was that the spectres had you hostage and had attempted to break you. It only took minutes for the cheery Delta to run away screaming, for the moments she did try to sit and bare through the video her face was frozen with fear and intense disgust. As the video and footage dragged on even the much tougher Shae refused to continue watching, the most disturbing thing about it for her was your lack of emotion or sound upon being hit repeatedly. Nova remained stone cold faced for the entire duration of the video, her expressionless face even scared Delta, Nova returned back to her room once more where she sat in silence once again.

This time, Nova's silence was short lived. Inside Nova's den mother instincts had kicked in, she had been through a lot in her life up to that point, but this came just short of the moments where she realized her parents were being taken out one by one at the top of her family's tower. She wanted answers more than anything, she couldn't do anything without knowing who took you and where they were holding you hostage. Nova ran at a blindingly fast speed towards the market, where you were seen last, she had an idea. For the last two and a half years or so that you two had spent together, Nova created a psionic profile for you specifically in her head, when she projected outwards psionically she would be able to see the trail of your psionic profile as if it were a pheromone or a scent in animals. There were limitations to this, but generally if there wasn't a huge degree of time elapsed your trail would remain. Nova went about this solo, as she knew that involving either of the other girls would put them unnecessarily into harm's way, and this time in particular it was very personal and she was very confident in her abilities now more than ever.

They treated you surprisingly humanely after the video recording finished, it was by no means hotel treatment or anything similar to that, but given the circumstances you were treated decently. Their intentions were to evoke fear and a response from Nova, what they didn't know however was what she was capable of because very few of them had ever served alongside her. Only 2 of the spectres amongst the group had ever been in direct contact with Nova, during the events of the first failed attempt at assassinating Mengsk in his palace, but the two of them were incapacitated much too early on to know anything about her. The fact that they knew that Nova was inevitably coming made the group of Spectres all the more paranoid, the idea of just simply killing Nova when she got there became more and more popular rather than risking negotiations with the fearsome PI 10. Even through their psionic enhancements Nova's PI 10 rating was far above what they could ever achieve, most of them were within a 6 or 7 range with only one or two individuals who were even capable of teeking things on a basic level.

Regardless, the team leader attempted to carry on with the plan; with a high probability that Nova now was on her way they had no time to be bickering among themselves, they needed to finish the objective and attempt to turn you into a spectre. The concept was that if they had managed to turn you into a spectre, then hopefully Nova would be more reluctant and willing to convert over to see their cause. A sound plan but that assumed that everything occurred on schedule, it was documented by Hauler that even under ideal circumstances the transition process to becoming a spectre would take at the very least several hours. First the individual had to be exposed with the Terrazine gas, then the individual would need to be held in stasis in a psionic waveform indoctrinator pod before finally exposed to pure Jorium in order to stabilize the Terrazine gas and severely cut down on how addicting the gas became for the individual. They immediately wasted no time once the lead spectre ordered the others for you to be exposed to the Terrazine. They picked you up off of the floor rather hurriedly, chaining you against a wall by attaching heavy metal cuffs onto either arm. They strung you upright against the wall, still in silence and remaining defiant you were sure to not give into the part of your brain which told you that you should be quivering in fear, remembering Nova's words of advice. "Defiant until the end huh?" the lead spectre said as he got closer to you, "Well let's see how long that lasts" he grinned and signalled to another spectre to come over. He lugged a huge gas canister which had a simple mask connected to the canister, he physically pushed the mask against your face and formed a seal over your face with his large hand, which also blocked your view. Suddenly a metallic tasting gas was released, it flowed into your mouth and nostrils even though you had tried your best to not breathe it in.

You began hallucinating, at which point your arms and legs curled and straightened repeatedly. Similar to Nova's experience bright lights and explosions began covering your field of view which severely disorientated you. The gas relaxed your body for one moment only to tense it the next, your body writhed and twisted around but the chains kept you in place as the other spectres looked on in joy and delight knowing that the end was near. As the masked Spectre lifted the mask and his hand off your face it revealed a horrible twisted and contorted face, catatonic as if you were lapsing in and out of immense pain and joy. They had to allow time for you to become relaxed before they could place you into the indoctrinator, much to the dismay of the lead spectre who had hoped you would stabilize much sooner. Minutes passed and the other spectres grew more and more anxious as you had not yet stabilized after your exposure to Terrazine. Instead of waiting any longer to allow your body to stabilize it naturally the lead spectre decided that enough was enough, he was going to forcefully anaesthetize you to keep you still as they lowered you into the tank. As the individual needed to remain standing and it was clear that you weren't capable of doing that yourself they kept the chains on and lowered your limp body into the clear glass tank.

The lights cut out to the warehouse, the spectres rapidly raised their AGR-14 rifles to the ready and looked up at the roof. It was the most logical point of entry, especially for a ghost to try to enter the warehouse from the roof; it's exactly what they had prepared for, but Nova had other ideas. The spectres slowly became alarmed, realizing that none of them could sense her presence which was unusual. The lead spectre yelled out "I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way then, Nova!" just as he finished his sentence a shot rang out across the warehouse, no flash was emitted but the damage was clear; two spectres were literally pinned and secured against the far wall of the warehouse. "This doesn't have to end this way Nova, I had hoped you would be a bit more compliant with us…" as they began cloaking, their suits were special and they were convinced that their advanced cloaking technology would allow them to remain invisible, even to Nova. Nova didn't need to see them physically in order to kill them however, and she too was completely invisible to them to the naked eye.

Nova remained completely calm, in the face of what was happening right in front of her even though she knew that time was of the essence, she needed to react before that pool of water in the tank rose, it slowly trickled up your leg and it began to remind her of the time she herself was in a tank as the water rose back on the orbital defence platform. Nova could sense the amount of fear and confusion the Spectres had, they began to move into a perimeter defence around the tank while cloaked. Nova silently crept her way down to the ground floor of the warehouse, she had been there a lot longer than the Spectres thought; the lights going out was just because of a timed fuse she had set onto an explosives charge outside the building. Over the time she had spent in the warehouse she began gathering background info on each spectre, and most notably the profile of the female spectre in the last segment of the video file; she was going to die last painfully, and slowly.

Nova psionically lashed out at the spectres, she had no intentions of dragging out the fight any longer than it needed to be, sparing two individuals amongst the midst; you and the female spectre she had identified as one of the ghosts whom she had worked with previously. The spectres immediately uncloaked and gave no yells or screams of pain, simply air which escaped their lungs as blood gushed out of their eyes, ears and mouth. As her group of spectres collapsed to the floor around her she began screaming, dropping her weapon on the floor and running towards the back exit of the warehouse. "Oh flick, please no!" she screamed frantically at the top of her lungs as she ran towards the exit. Nova teeked her legs and crushed her ankles causing her to collapse face first into the pavement, which still had not yet deterred her from trying to get away; she began crawling towards the exit at a steady pace under immense pain emanating from her ankles. Nova uncloaked and began taking steps towards her, echoing across the empty warehouse. The spectre turned back to see Nova's figure taking steady paces towards her, she started screaming fanatically and spread her fingers into claws trying to crawl faster, away from Nova but it was too late. Nova teeked against the tips of the spectres fingers, pushing back against them and snapping them each at the joint; but Nova needed to get to you first.

Nova rapidly sprung up and onto the top of the tub, pulling in the chains carefully to remove you from the cold waters that was slowly filling the tub from the base. Nova wrapped her arms tightly around you placing her cheek tightly against your bruised face and began to cry deeply. Nova crumpled to the floor and lay hunched over the top of you, normally she tried to maintain composure when she needed to contact with the fleet but this time her voice staggered and slurred through tears as she called for a medivac pickup on her position. Nova had felt that it was her own personal fight to bring you back from the brink, not to mention the dangers and unpredictability of spectres meant that she didn't want assistance from anyone else. After she had secured you, Nova slowly rose to a standing position and turned around to face the incapacitated but very much so conscious spectre who was begging for mercy and head full for fear and regret. Nova majestically leapt into the air and in similar fashion as she did to Ward, she landed down one knee first into the spectres spine column with an audible crack echoing out across the empty warehouse, instantly killing the spectre and spraying an arc of projectile blood across the concrete floor.

Moments later "Mommy!" echoed throughout the warehouse, emanating from the warehouse entrance as Nova slowly and carefully picked you up off of the floor. Nova embraced you tightly, wrapping an arms around your legs and her other arm across your back and began carrying you towards the entrance. Delta ran towards the two of you in tears and screamed out "Is Daddy okay?" Nova looked up at Delta and slowly nodded but she herself wasn't quite sure and wanted a second opinion from the waiting medical staff. Shae was present as well but she gave space for the family, opting to stand by the door of the medivac awaiting your arrival. You started coming around aboard the medivac, much to everyone's delight and in particular Nova's; you were much less concerned about recent events, opting to change the subject rather quickly wondered as to whether or not Shae kept the groceries which lifted the mood greatly amongst the girls. It was the early hours of Shae's birthday as you were transported home, much to everyone's relief.

Nova couldn't detach herself from you the whole flight home, squeezing you tightly and at times sobbing. You could tell that Shae was feeling accountable for your loss and thus was deeply distressed over it; you knew that there wasn't much else that could have been done about the events which lead to your capture. With what little amounts of energy you had left you called out for a family cuddle, beaconing for Shae to come over who felt reluctant to join you. A cheerful Delta ran over and grabbed Shae's hand, dragging her against her will across the floor of the medivac. You embraced everyone as tightly as you could, and Nova did not let up her unrelenting hug the whole way home.

It was dawn by the time you reached home, Nova carried you off to bed where the both of you remained for a large portion of the day. Nova did her best to psionically heal your bruises are sore spots but you were still incredibly tired and drained from having been kept awake the night before. Nova lay quietly on top of you throughout the day as her den mother instincts kicked in, she vowed to herself that she would never let recent events happen again. As dinner approached you had made a particular effort to take a break from resting in order to prepare a three course meal for Shae's 19th birthday. With much assistance from the whole family an entrée of ham and pea fritters, a corn and chicken soup, main meal of cottage pie which you were particularly fond of as much as Shae was, finishing with a dessert of a simple home-style apple pie all prepared from scratch. This was the first time the whole family sat down at the dinner table to a meal in a very long time, much to the delight of Delta who made it an effort to remain extra cheerful today.

Main Idea I had with this chapter was to outline that there is a succinct difference betweeen Shae and either of the other two girls, not necessarily in a bad way even though in this chapter she might have felt - sounded pretty incompetent / "inferior" to the others, but every dog has it's day and I intend to express her abilities much more freely in the next chapter. I make it a point to make her feel down - depressed about the capture because she's only been in the family for about 6 months or so now, still trying to fit in and what not; feeling that you've made that big of a mistake that early on in a friendship which means a lot to you evokes a lot of fear, primarily the fear of maybe not being accepted as you initially were; and a much more bigger fear of failure, trying to paint a picture of her being a lot more human than the other characters, it was your task to welcome her back and set those fears to rest and making her feel at home once again towards the end of the chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

Nova's eyes lit up and tears of joy soon filled her eyes, her face became flustered quickly and flushed a bright pink in colour. Nova clasped her hands over her mouth as she squealed loudly in excitement at a high pitch tone; her hands shortly after broke away from her face and she waved them briskly in a fan like manner blowing the warm air against her face.

It was a very long time since Nova had experienced a genuine surprise, for a very long time she could always simply mind read either intentionally or accidentally to find out what the surprise was, but this time it was different. Over the time everyone had spent with her, you had all become fairly adept and managing to not think about things, or more specifically one thing such as a surprise of this magnitude.

Just moments earlier Nova had her eyes covered by Delta, her hands gripped tightly but gently over Nova's eyes to ensure that she couldn't see what was happening in front of her. The plan was set out only a few days before to make things simpler, you were going to propose to Nova; and the nature of the proposal would make it one of the most difficult proposals known to man, or so you thought anyway. It was difficult to keep things a surprise to Nova, keeping a surprise a well, surprise from someone who could read your thoughts was virtually impossible without the aid of specific hardware, and even that could only provide you a 50 – 50 chance at best because of Nova's abilities.

You slowly got down on one knee in front of Nova who still had her vision covered, what felt like an eternity had passed since the plan was conceptualized to this moment right now. Slowly but surely, Delta's hands waved away from Nova's eyes which revealed you in front of her holding a small box which contained a fairly modest ring. In Nova's eyes it was beautiful, her eyes fixated upon the ring and slowly raised her hand out to touch it but Delta slapped away at it reminding Nova that you were yet to say anything just yet. "Annabella Novem" it was here that Nova blurted out "Yes!" in excitement before frantically nodding her head but Delta once again chimed in and motioned her hands to signal you to keep going. "Uhh, ahum, Annabella November Terra will you marry me?" Nova lowered her hands from her face while her knees quivered and slowly gave way, she lunged herself over your shoulder and wrapped both arms around you loosely. Nova sobbed and tried her best to hold back tears of joy as she embraced you, nuzzling her nose into your neck before letting out a whole hearted approval.

Delta watched on seemingly shedding more tears than Nova did, bawling her eyes out which was in contrast to an equally happy but more toned down emotionally Shae who stood idly leaning back against the wall in the foreground with a grin across her face. You embraced Nova tightly, she in turn was also trying to do her best at avoiding your sore spots and bruises that were still clearing up.

Nova had decided that she wasn't going to do anything else for the day, opting to cuddle up next to you for the whole day in bed with her eyes fixated upon the ring you had given her. It was perfect in her eyes, Nova's eyes remained fixated upon the ring for most of the day, and you began wondering if she had said yes because of the ring or to what you said. It was a simple ring, nothing particularly special or overtly fancy about it, it didn't contain the most amount of diamonds or rare jewels the jeweller had to offer, nor did it cost a fortune but it was the act of giving it to her and asking the fateful question which touched her deeply.

Nova hadn't hallucinated very many of her previous memories for quite some time, and by now she was more than aware of the fact that they were just old memories returning to her that appeared lifelike. As Nova lay by your side on the couch she began to see what first was vague and unclear images and scenes of her fifteenth birthday, particularly a moment where she saw both her mother and father standing together with each other and smiling at her as she began to cut into her cake. Her mother and father both nodded and smiled when she managed to reach the bottom of the cake, it was a cherished moment in her life and she knew it was symbolic.

Nova since meeting you lived her life with one thought in mind, it was a saying she said to you on several occasions, particularly when you asked about her past. "Sometimes forgetting what's behind is the only way to look ahead" it was a phrase which had substantial symbolic meaning, for both her wanting to escape her past and what happened in what seemed to be her previous life and her life now spent by your side. You reminded her every time, that you accepted her for what she was, and that no matter who she was or what she was doing that you would always love her.

Nova lay slumped down to her side against you on the coach lazily, Delta sat cross legged on the carpeted floor with eyes intently locked to the screen of the television whereas Shae on the other hand was warming up for her daily training routine in the corridor which became her makeshift training area. Suddenly, seemingly like a dog who smelled something delicious in the air, Nova's head perked up from your shoulder and turned her attention towards the door. Seemingly at the same time, the other two girls lost focus in what they were doing and noted the same thing, emanating from outside.

"What is it?" you whispered, noting that Nova began turning off the electrical appliances and turned out the lights of the house. It was late evening, and the sun had just went down over the horizon making it just dark enough but enough that you could still make things and objects out, the streetlights had yet to come on either. Nova began to beacon you and Delta to go upstairs but left Shae remaining where she was. You stumbled your way up the stairs in the dark following intently behind Nova who seemed to be very cautious now as you approached Delta and Shae's bedroom which was positioned away from the front of the house. Nova quietly whispered for the both of you to remain here while she and Shae would as she had worded it "found a solution to the problem" to which Delta reacted with a devilish grin as she knew what that meant. You were still lost and completely in the dark as to what was happening, not knowing what the ruckus was all about, Delta whispered "There's some guys thinking of robbing a house on our street, they're driving around looking for a place to break into, and Nova thinks they're going to choose our house".

The street your house was on wasn't particularly anything special, but what it was notable about it was it was one of the more prosperous suburbs in the city. Your house however stood out on the street, Nova had made an effort to ensure that it didn't look like a fort like any of the other houses or in certain cases estates on your street. It was an ordinary house, even though it realistically was anything but by having half inch thick plexi glass windows and in certain places inch thick neosteel plates inserted into the walls including a door and a frame which could survive virtually anything short of a nuke exploding a few meters short of the entrance. The other houses on the street had applied a different methodology to ward away any would be thugs or vandals, with an air of openly showing security measures put in place to deter would be thieves.

"You wanted a chance to show me some of your stuff Shae, you can but go easy on them" Nova softly told Shae as she continued her work out "Just, don't kill them, I don't want the local police department rubbing their noses all over my house" Nova said as she began moving towards the intercom, she began deciding whether or not to contact the authorities before or after Shae started, but before she could come up with a decision Shae shouted out defiantly "After, please" before cracking her knuckles and neck in preparation. By now they had parked their car a fair distance away from your residence and began to proceed on foot to your property. Shae began going upstairs, much to the surprise of Nova who had expected her to take a much more front on approach through the front door.

They were three houses down and were drawing closer at a steady pace, little to their knowledge Nova had already began her psionic assault, she teeked at their guns causing all of them to prematurely fire off a round which she had then forced a stovepipe malfunction in each of their guns. Their pistols each discharged a round and because of the commotion made, made them feel even more rushed and hurried to get to your house, there was no turning back now. Nova began reading their minds and began building a rough profile of each of the men who were approaching the house, there were 5 of them. Nova began to go through things like previous criminal history records, what their family situation was like, siblings and surviving family members and the like. Nova fed these details to Shae, but at this point she was in a very determined state yet relaxed at the same time as she lay still against the cool ground of the balcony. "I want you to kill the second guy of the lot" Nova thought to Shae, "I thought you said no killing" Shae replied to which Nova simply stated "This one's special, just remember, he's the one with the bald head, keep in clean I don't want to have to clean up after this" she sadistically thought.

Shae lay in wait on the balcony, keeping low against the cold tiled floor as the 5 men began attempting to get your front gate open. "Y'know if they take any longer I can just take them all out before they even get to the door Nova" Shae sounded particularly intent to end this quickly but Nova was determined to set these men as examples. It took them 2 whole minutes to work even a simple padlock feature with a basic open and close feature on the front gate, they began working their way across the garden, stepping over the lawn in single file rapidly towards the door with their guns raised at the windows above. Shivers began to go up Nova's spine, she wasn't particularly fond of letting them get this close and began rethinking her decision to let them get this far onto the property.

When the men got to the door and began attempting to hack away at the door as the others tried to work their way around the sides of the house, Shae decided to spring into action as their minds were clearly now diverted away from potential occupants to ways they can enter the house while making as little commotion as possible. Shae silently leapt off the balcony landing softly and quietly onto the grass below so as to not alert the men of her presence just yet. Nova's thought echoed in her head, seemingly in Nova's own voice reminding her to kill the bald guy, and make it as clean as possible. While she lay down she been building physical profiles of each man, getting a better idea of their own physical strength and weaknesses particularly of the bald guy.

Shae had pondered up a list of ways she could initiate but had decided to give the men a fighting chance before going down, she briefly made out the outlines of each man as they appeared vaguely in front of her. "Two on the door, 2 to my left and 1 guy trying to get into the other side of the house, bald guy's at the door" she thought to herself, marking each of the men out in her head visually assigning each of them a mental number. After doing so she began working at them in sequential order, she had prioritized the two on the side gate as they were the most isolated from the others. Shae ran up in full sprint and leapt at the two men on the side gate, with the momentum gained she wrapped both her legs around the neck of one man and flipped him sideways and onto the other man forcing both of them to the ground with much noise in the process. Surprisingly there was a lack of shouting or screaming from the men, the first man was knocked unconscious fairly quickly as he landed head first to the floor, Shae ended up ontop of the men quickly delivering a sharp and very fast blow to the head of the other guy, causing his head to crash against the pavement with a very audible crack ringing out.

The crack was loud enough that it had caught the intention of the other men who dropped what they were doing and approached with the guns drawn. In the darkness they began calling out if the others were okay to no response, they took the corner with their guns rattling away in fear as the darkness enveloped them. Inevitably stumbling upon their bodies quite literally as they tripped right over them in the dark. As they turned around with the thoughts of getting the hell out of there, Shae snapped the arm of what she had designated as number 5 who was the man assigned to the other side of the house. His screams in agony and pain pierced the quiet air before cutting deathly silent early before another slam against the ground was heard, it was the sound of Shae raising her leg up into the air and slamming it down against the man's head making him fall forward, slamming his head against the side gate and body onto the other two men. Falling over in pain and fear they began attempting to discharge their weapons only to find that they weren't responding. Shae sadistically grinned and said "Is there a problem?" folding her arms in defiance and in a show of strength. The two survivors screamed in fear as they could barely make out the outline of Shae in the darkness, Shae rapidly spun around in place and with her arms still folded she spun back and peeled back her leg into the body of number one before rapidly following up with another kick with her right leg vertically upwards sending him flying over the fence, but Shae had restrained ever so slightly enough so as to leave the man impaled on the side gate in agony.

Number two was all who remained standing, he could just make out the fates of his friends in the darkness, knowing what was coming he tried to go down fighting but Shae quickly saw to it that he wouldn't be able to. "You're special, you're going to die slowly and painfully" Shae said sadistically which froze the man with fear, Shae reached an arm out to the man who had seemingly gone into a state of shock and disbelief from one of confidence just moments earlier. Shae dragged number two by the neck to the front steps of the house and lay him down. "Nova come out" Nova was concerned, even she had felt the ways Shae had used were a little, well, over the top but didn't want to say anything. Nova approached the door and opened it, turning the front lights on in the process to get a look at the carnage Shae had managed to inflict in the dark. To Nova's surprise Shae had her eyes remained closed the whole time, she relied purely on sound alone. Shae called out "You wanted to see what I can do Nova?" she sadistically said as she dragged the man belly side down on the floor up to the steps of the door. "I call him number two, and the last thing his eyes are going to see is you" Shae called out, seemingly in a state of ecstasy and trance. Nova looked on with a blank expression on her face as the man cried out for mercy, Nova's cold and unrelenting glare cut straight through him "Do it, get it over with Shae" and with that Shae raised her leg to the side whilst remaining an upright posture, she began to tilt her body into a curled position before releasing one rapid kick to the man's head with her left leg before sweeping around onto her left leg and following up with a roundhouse kick with her right leg. Shae's boots were covered with the blood of the man much to her dismay as she had managed to otherwise get away from the scene fairly cleanly.

Nova patted Shae on the head, "How long till the police get here?" Shae asked and she began taking off her reddened sheepskin boots, Nova didn't have an answer to which Shae followed up with "Because that guy over there impaled on the fence is bleeding out if you intend to just have 1 dead guy". Nova felt that the amount of force Shae applied was definitely sufficient and if anything a little excessive, just as she began moving inside and closing the door the Police began arriving with their sirens silent upon Nova's request. The police arrived rather rapidly because of Nova's high profile status in having a large degree of importance to the military and government. Nova used her status to make the use of force appear justified, the police didn't question the scene of the crime as Nova instructed them to keep the volume to a minimum as they "clean up the scene of the crime" which the officers at the scene had the unsightly and grizzly task of cleaning up of.

Shae held up her fist, beaconing you for a fist bump with a firm and confident grin across her face. Delta had relayed most of what was happening outside from the details that were passed between Shae and Nova. You were initially shocked at how carefree and calm Shae appeared even after what she had just done outside, but knew that comparatively it was nothing to what any of them do out in the field. This is their life, and this is their specialty in it and all of them were damn good at doing it. You placed your fist firmly against Shae and gave her a reassured fist bump back, she could feel your hesitation initially but was glad you followed through. Shae unlike the other girls didn't often read your mind, you and Shae developed a fairly close bond ever since the events of the market.

As the eventful evening came to a close you and Nova paired off to your own bathroom while Shae and Delta shared the main bathroom, mainly due to complaints of Nova taking too long in the Shower. Even after the past few years spent with her, Nova still felt uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed at being naked in front of anyone and seemingly in particular towards you. Not that you were any different in seeing her naked as you were completely aware that she could read any lingering thoughts you might have, a thought which put you on edge. However, that wasn't to say that neither of you weren't trying to get over the embarrassment, now that you two were engaged Nova began placing a larger degree of effort in maintaining composure and keeping a straight face.

Much later in the evening, just after midnight Delta peeked her head out of her room in order to get a drink from the bathroom, it wasn't a particularly long walk and she could easily do it in the dark but she noted something on the way to the bathroom. Delta heard quiet but definitely apparent moans emanating from your room, Delta couldn't quite teep into the room due to the extra amount of psionic padding which separated the rooms, curious she tilted her head in the dark and stumbled her way across the upstairs living room towards your room. The open door and moans had also attracted Shae's attention, but it had only taken her a few short moments as to what was happening and that she needed to spring fast into action to make sure Delta didn't get to your bedroom door. Shae sprang out of bed rapidly and quickly drew her hand over Delta's mouth and dragged her slowly back into their room. Shae placed her hands over her lips, quietening down the now very curious Delta as to why Nova was moaning so loudly this late into the night.

It took her a moment, but when she quietened down she began realizing what was happening in your room, now both girls were equally just as curious opting to peek through a gap made from their door being incompletely closed. Delta looked on in relative horror with her mouth drawn wide open whilst Shae had a much cheekier grin on her face. At breakfast the morning after neither of the girls were hiding what they heard last night, it wasn't long before Nova came downstairs and she began realizing what both the girls had heard from last night. Nova sat down at the table visibly blushing, her arms folded and she looked the other way avoiding eye contact with everyone at the table. It was a simple scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast this morning, as you began rolling out the plates Shae walked up to you with raised eyebrows and a cheeky grin, bumping her hip into yours walking past you. Looking back at the dining table you realized that Nova was looking in your direction and it was clear that she was thoroughly embarrassed.

As you sat down at the table, Nova blurted out "L-Let's not talk about last night" it had only then sunk in as to what the girls heard or saw; you noted from last night that Nova was moaning particularly loudly, in turn you became equally embarrassed and only then did you realize what the bump and facial expression of Shae meant. Now both of you were thoroughly embarrassed, Nova picked up both your plates and darted off upstairs, motioning you to follow her in the process. Delta and Shae giggled away as the two of you went into your room, you shouted out "I hope you're happy!" before closing the bedroom door shut behind you.

The two of you sat quietly on the bed, finishing what was the now lukewarm scrambled eggs on toast. Nova was clearly still embarrassed, with her cheeks still a light pink she muttered out "I didn't think I was that loud was I?" to which you didn't quite know how to answer without making the situation any more awkward than it already was. You leaned in and stacked your plate on top of hers and began moving towards the door, "Well, in either case you shouldn't be too embarrassed about it, I'm sure the girls understand…" you said with a reassuring tone. Nova looked back at you and asked "You can't be serious right?" to which you grinned and proceeded out of the room, leaving the door open.

Reaching the kitchen you were surprised to see that Shae had begun washing the plates, jokingly you pushed your hips against hers motioning her to move across. "Not a word from you" you said bluntly to Shae which she exclaimed "I didn't even say anything!" In reality Shae was much more mature about it all than you gave her credit and if anything she was surprised she hadn't caught the two of you more often. On that note a question came to your mind, "Wait, do you have a boyfriend yet Shae?" to which Shae blushed but let out a disappointed no followed up sight a faint sigh.

Footnotes: Details which I want to point out, just because the bedroom had psionic padding doesn't necessarily mean it's sound proof. It's implied but I didn't state it as per previous chapters that periods of time elapse on several occasions throughout this chapter; I've decided to use backstories or pieces of text which simply fill the void as means of illustrating that time had passed, instead of previous chapters where I've literally stated and put forth quantitative time figures explaining that time has passed which doesn't quite sound too appealing for me as the writer nor do I imagine makes it very appealing for the reader.

Now onto previous chapters, I've noted that you guys (based off chapter viewership) appear to like longer chapters or ones with more content in them (both 2k long chapters received dismal views) so that means to me that I'm going to have to try to make longer chapters more frequently, provided that is it's possible with the current idea or story line I'm trying to follow

From a lore aspect, or idea that I'm building off of Nova; if you haven't gathered it already I'm basing the depiction of Nova in this story as the most up-to-date version of her, ie. How she is portrayed in HOTS (Heroes of the storm) official artwork, with the very very long ponytail; I had an idea of trying to explain how or why she has glowing eyes on HOTS but decided against it as it just didn't seem very realistic. It's also implied from the lore that Nova's "approximate" age depending on what year you currently see the Starcraft universe is in that Nova should be somewhere in her early 20's to mid 20's.

Onto this chapter in particular, to be honest I know this chapter is fairly lacklustre, it doesn't contain very much realistic content in it; compared to previous chapters anyway. I don't see any certain degree of importance or character progression which occurred this chapter, maybe a degree of building upon your relationship with Nova as it's apparent that things got a little busy the last few months. To be honest I think as a guy that if you've spent "x" amount of time with a girl and you've gone through this many things with her, you might as well put a ring on it.

Not quite as happy with Nova's dialogue in that there's just not that much I can really touch up on, there's just too little to go off of in terms of her personality and key features – traits that it's very difficult to come up with heartfelt – genuine dialogue and lines. This chapter I tried to include even a quote which she had been noted saying from SC: Spectres just to try and get some degree of importance of her background story in. Which raises another point of difficulty, she's someone who is trying to escape her past, someone trying to move on with her life, a point I addressed in this chapter but makes it difficult in detailing because you obviously don't want to delve into her past if she doesn't want to, you can only look ahead and provide her comfort.

Throughout the chapters, I detail certain abilities, key traits and skills which may not have been depicted in the lore, particularly with Nova (for example, teeking against an opponents ankles and shattering them) but I keep them or at least try to keep these ideas "within reason" ie. for me personally I would have to believe that this ability or whatever she's doing isn't too "out there" and would be at the very least considered "plausible". Baring in mind that it has been noted that Nova could with her mind alone manage to cut a zergling lengthways with her mind, an in another instance was able to essentially dissect a hydralisk with her teeking prowess. It was also noted to some degree, albeit slightly that she had the ability to change the trajectory of a bullet's flight path shot out of a C-14 from relatively point blank range, so to some extent it would appear that her teeking towers are far more capable than even what I give her credit for.

Anyway, thanks for reading and especially if you read the footnotes I add, if you have any comments or queries please do write a review, I'd greatly appreciate hearing feedback and comments about the story and how it's progressing. I try to remain 100% within the boundaries of the lore at all times, if you do see an error or a mistake which I've made, particularly with the details of Nova in any way please also don't hesitate to drop a line and point it out to me.


	8. Chapter 8

The doorbell rang out downstairs, it began to echo across the whole house before reaching your bedroom. Delta bounced up off the couch in the living room to a standing position, she yelled out "It's uncle Mal!" but Shae being substantially more cautious grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back down. You and Nova were still in your bedroom with the door closed, largely unphased by the door bell ringing out, expecting it to be a door salesman of some sort who often came this early in the morning.

"Can I help you?" Shae asked while holding Delta back with her leg, she wasn't in any particular mood to teep the man in order to find out. The tall man with a craggy face suddenly perked up when Shae answered the door, beneath her thigh he noted that she was pressing back against Delta, holding her inside and away from him. "Hi, uhh I didn't umm, quite catch your name" he shyly muttered out upon seeing Shae. She wasn't too particularly impressed, showing a blank facial expression at first which quickly turned into one of annoyance and resentment.

The awkward silence became deafening, even Delta wasn't impressed at Mal who she had high hopes for after hearing all the stories Nova and him went through together. Delta slowly backed away from the door, easing Shae's leg but not waving her expression which had since deteriorated, she wanted to close the door on him right then and there but it was apparent that he was here for a reason. "Well? Spit it out, what do you want?" Shae hissed at him, shocking him into regaining his focus on the task at hand "Oh uhh, I was looking for a November Terra, I was wondering if you know where I could find her" which sent Delta flying up the stair case at a very brisk speed. Hearing the sounds that Delta was making running up the stairs awoke Nova, who quickly rolled out of bed and making a mess of the sheets in the process.

Delta almost ran head first into the bedroom door if Nova hadn't opened it just before she got close enough. Nova didn't need an explanation from Delta at that point to know who was at the door, she didn't need to try very hard at all to recognize that psionic signature. Nova's face quickly filled with joy and came running down the stairs with purpose before leaping at Mal. With her face filled with glee and joy she leapt at Mal which sent Shae ducking away. Mal's face went from an almost equal amount of glee and joy in his face to one of disappointment and envy when he noted the ring on Nova's finger.

Mal began connecting the dots in his head, seemingly thinking that he had mapped everything out before Nova quickly stepped in. "Mal, I'm engaged!" she said with confidence and glee which had only made Mal sink even deeper in regret and sorrow as he too loved her, albeit rather secretly. Noting his face Nova began to fear the worst "You're not here for my partner are you?" Mal quickly shook his head which made Nova breathe a brief sigh of relief. Just at that moment you began slowly stepping down the stairs to what had now become a scene at the front of the house. "Will! This is Mal!" Nova shouted gleefully, hoping that the two of you would get along well with each other.

The two of you had hardly very few similarities, well at first glance anyway you noted. "Why would I be after your partner Nova?" he asked giving a puzzled face "Oh! Uhh n-nothing" Nova said with a wide grin across her face followed with fairly obviously faked giggling. "Nova, you never were a very good liar, and trust me that I'm not here for your partner" he said reassuringly before directing his attention towards you, he definitely noted at the very least some degree of psionic potential but was sure to not take any notes on it, even though he was particularly tempted to do so.

"So why are you here then Mal?" Nova asked with a more toned down expression on her face. Nova backed away and up against you, almost to signify your relationship with each other and the other two girls followed suit. With the whole family packed into a group against one another rather tightly, Mal who was clearly intimidated darted his eyes left and right before muttering out "What? Can I not just pop in and visit an old friend?" Shae immediately crossed her arms across her chest and almost leered at him, before Nova brushed her arms down and with a warm and pleasant smile across her face "Oh, of course you can Mal!" holding her arms out to usher him inside.

As you all began to sit down around the dining table, it was clear and apparent that Shae wasn't too particularly fond of him, she remained standing with her arms folded firmly across her chest leaning back against a wall instead of opting to sit down. Nova tucked her arm around yours and sported a wide grin across her face, her happiness if anything was causing Mal to feel even more envious of you but he didn't reveal those thoughts very easily. Delta however didn't need to exactly read his thoughts to determine that was the case, she had managed to pick up on his feelings even though he wasn't directly thinking them. Delta's bright and cheerful face turned into a dull and blank one when she began sensing the thoughts of underlying envy and jealousy, she opted to leave the room and took Shae with her in tow, heading upstairs.

Nova could sense something amiss with the girls, they were normally very accommodating towards guests but they were both different with Mal. Nova had hoped that everyone would get along with him swimmingly but she could tell that even you were beginning to have underlying thoughts about him. A period of silence ensued in the dining room after the girls had ran away upstairs, "Soooo" Mal said in an attempt to break the awkwardness, "Nice house you guys have got here" as his eyes darted around the room. "Mal, I know you, and I know that you wouldn't come all the way out here to look for me just to comment about my house" Nova said pressingly, wanting to uncover what motives he may have in coming here. Nova selectively chose as to whether or not she wanted to teep someone, typically opting to not teep people who were close to her, so as to not invade their personal privacy.

Mal cleared his throat and locked his gaze upon Nova's eyes, "Nova, they want you back at the academy" Nova wasn't too sure how to react "Sure, for like a few days or?" "Permanently, Nova" Nova gripped your arm tighter, "Why do they want me back there?" Nova asked as she locked eyes with you, she could tell that you were particularly concerned. "They want you as head instructor, I don't know if you heard, but Sarco passed away of his injuries he sustained back on Tarsonis" Nova leaned in against you, placing her weight against your shoulder as she began building a response. She knew it wasn't really a matter of whether or not she wanted to go, it was more of a direct order placed upon her from the Director himself. "They sent you here, because they knew that if they tried to get to me any other way the likelihood of me turning them down was substantially higher" she said, beginning to piece things together in her head. Mal nervously rubbed his hands against his coat, he knew the outcome of her decision here would be vital, and he knew he had done as much as he could to try to influence her in swaying towards a positive response.

As Nova began piecing things together, she looked back at you, seemingly as if she was waiting for your approval. You weren't quite sure about this though, almost indifferent about the matter but you knew that you had to be opinionated on the matter sooner or later because Nova was going to ask for an approval sooner or later from you. The move would affect you as much as it would her, a great deal of responsibility would be placed upon Nova and furthermore would likely place a greater deal of distance between you with her work probably needing to take precedence over her family life. "You're going to have to excuse us for a moment Mal, treat yourself to some tea or coffee" Nova said in a monotone manner as she gently ushered you upstairs with her tailing up behind you.

Nova clenched her light brown eyebrows together, forming stress lines across her forehead as the two of you lay quietly in bed with one another. Nova groaned, "It's too early to make decisions" she grovelled. She slowly opened her eyes and poked her nose at your cheek "So, What do you think?" she asked sincerely "Do you think we should go or-"you decided to but in "Nova, if they genuinely need you, I think you, I mean we should go". The bedroom door opened quietly as the girls came in, closing the door behind them. Soon enough the whole family was tucked away under the sheets around Nova. Everyone had decided that ultimately the decision lay with Nova as to whether or not the family would go, a decision she wasn't too particularly fond of making.

Nova suddenly got up and pulled you away from the bed by the shirt towards your room's bathroom. You stood there in the shower with Nova as she drooped her head low and rested it upon your shoulder. As the warm water covered the two of you, Nova slowly began nodding and said in a clear and concise manner "I think we're gonna go Will". You stared into her eyes as she lifted her head up from your shoulder "To be honest, I'd be more concerned had you said no" which intrigued her. Nova bit her lip down when she realized that you were expecting her to take the offer, "So what if I said no? What would you say then?" To be honest, you didn't quite know what to say had she declined, you were sort of hoping but was also fairly certain that she would take the position, despite being out of action for the large part of the last few months.

With her hair still rather damp Nova made her way back downstairs, and moved with purpose to the dining room which Mal had recently discovered the presence of Delta's homemade frosted cookie jar and subsequently made himself feel at home with them. "Well?" Mal forced out as he scoffed down one cookie after another, taking brief sips of coffee to which he used Nova's mug. Nova snatched a cookie out of Mal's hand, placing it down in the jar which was now only half full before swinging around again and taking her mug back as well. "I'm going, but I'd like to let you know that I needed a lot of thought to come to my decision, leaving everything behind here and-" Mal cut in, and he could tell that Nova wasn't particularly pleased with him doing so "Nova they want you to be the Academy's Dean of Psionics, do you have any idea how many other people are on that list of replacements after Sarco?" Nova didn't particularly care about the how or why she was needed, what mattered a heck of a lot more at the moment was the opinions of her own family, and as to whether or not they were ready for such a drastic change.

After a brief period of peering off into the distance, completely disregarding whatever Mal was babbling about in his philosophical lecture; Nova came back to the present and bluntly cut in with "When are we going". A surprised look fell upon Mal's face, she was intent and willing to go almost immediately he felt "They wanted you in as soon as possible, the sense of urgency isn't too particularly paramount but they did stress how vital it was to them that time is of the essence Nova" While he was finishing his sentence, Nova was already on the move and proceeded upstairs, uncertain as to how the girls would react to the news assuming that you hadn't told them while she was down stairs.

Nova slowly caressed the door handle to the bedroom, taking a slow deep breath in before walking into the room. Chances are by now, either of the girls would have teeped into her mind and figured out what was going to happen by now anyway, but she decided that announcing it face to face would at least show a degree of regret in making the call. As Nova opened the door, to her surprise everyone came at her and embraced her. It didn't matter to the rest of you as to where home may be, it mattered a lot more that the family remained whole and committed. This would be the first time for you at least travelling off world, this was the only planet you knew and loved. It wasn't so much as the opportunity never presented itself to move off world, it was just that there was never quite a good enough reason to force you to travel.

"We're moving to Korhal" Nova said, which puzzled Delta as she had expected the Academy would move Nova on site, on Ursa which the academy was actually located. Nova cringed the side of her mouth, the idea of living on Ursa didn't sit particularly high with her as it was barely habitable, with the only major installations on the moon being a major port and the academy itself which took up the vast majority of the moon's surface. With that in mind she was more than willing to accept the offer of a residence on Korhal which was still rebuilding after the terraforming began soon after the Zerg attack which left a large amount of the planet irreparably scarred. With most of it's civilian population wiped out, it was going to take time to convince people to return to the planet, as such at present there was largely only a military presence on the planet, with a large amount of civilian contractors and their families spread thinly across the surface.

Delta's eyes welled up with concern all of a sudden, "So what will happen to our house? Do we get to keep it or are we leaving it behind?" Nova rolled her eyes up and to the right, thinking as to how to respond. With her tongue in cheek "Hmm, I think what they're probably going to do is melt this place down, something about a heavily fortified house probably doesn't sit very well with the local police department" which also meant that all wanted possessions must be taken, sparing virtually nothing behind. The girls leapt up from the bed and began packing away all their belongings, emptying drawers and their closet of clothes and the like.

The reality was that packing up all the possessions you owned in a two story house took a lot longer than either of the girls had initially anticipated. Their initial optimism and vigour quickly turned into it feeling like more of a chore than a particularly exciting activity. Even with Mal's help it became all too apparent that the deadline drawn for finishing before the sun went down would have to be put off for several more hours at the least. The battlecruiser assigned to the transportation of Nova came into orbit up above, making a very spectacular appearance in the very early hours of the morning the next day. Despite the insistence of the ship's captain to employ Marines to help speed up the loading process, Nova declined as she would rather see to it herself that all her families possessions be accounted for and be loaded with due care.

As dawn broke the morning after, the tireless amounts of work began to pay off with most if not all the belongings loaded onto the cargo bay of the cruiser. Delta was first to fall asleep in her new found room aboard the cruiser, with Shae not wanting to rest until she abided by her morning workout routine which she had been tightly keeping up with the last few weeks. Nova remained on the bridge, peering off into space over the planet which she had spent the last 3 years of her life on, it wasn't as important to her necessarily as her home planet of Tarsonis, but it still held meaning to her nevertheless. She was rather surprised you were so easily convinced into leaving, but figured a lot of it had to do with wanting whatever she wanted. You approached her from behind on the bridge, tickling her which caused her to frantically spasm out of control and shout before laughing and falling back against you. She was particularly vulnerable to tickling, a trait you often resorted to much to her dismay.

"You should get some rest Nova, we've had a long day" which she eagerly nodded, but chimed in with "Don't you want to see us moving away from the planet?" as the ship began to slowly change trajectory and away from the planet. The ship's shield generators began lifting a barrier around the ship, forming a dull green transparent barrier seemingly perfectly spherical around the ship. Slowly the ship began to move forward and several moments later the ship fell into warp space, the bridge began travelling at light speed causing an assortment of various elongated colours to form lines which filled the bridge with an assortment of different light patterns. It was a sight all too familiar to Nova, but it still intrigued her every time and whenever possible she opted to see it in person from the bridge.

Soon enough you would reach Korhal, several hours in fact which was perfect timing to get some shut eye in Nova thought as the two of you proceeded down the main hallway of the battlecruiser towards the quarters. Nova once again had the officers' quarters to herself, Shae and Delta were both already asleep so you entered the room making as little noise as possible so as to not wake them.


	9. Chapter 9

You woke up late into the evening, seemingly to what was loud shouting and voices all around you but in reality everyone was sleeping. Your head ached from being woken up during REM sleep, you reached towards the side of the bed where the light switch was but it was apparent that nobody was awake to be making all the noise you had just heard. It was a loud roar of several different voices, from seemingly different angles all around you. Soon enough after a brief silence had occurred, they started up once again, but this time you were fully awake to hear them. You began to focus, trying to decipher what was being said, what each individual channel of voice and sounds was saying but it was impossible as they simply overlapped one another the moment you began to try to focus on just one of them.

Whenever your head seemed to move onto one of the girls, a different channel of voice echoed into your head louder than the rest, but there was one voice which was clearly more apparent and sounded a lot more defined than the others. When you turned your head to Nova who was still fast asleep at your side, a channel of sound seeming to emanate from her became louder, as if you were reading her thoughts or her thoughts were being directly projected into your head. It was the terrazine exposure you thought to yourself, its effects had finally set in during your sleep. From one perspective, one side of your emotions said that this was completely cool but the other and the more frightening prospect was equally apparent.

It wasn't long before Nova caught on that something was amiss, even in her sleep she could determine that something wasn't quite right. She groaned, her arms tightened and realized that you weren't lying down next to her, or in bed at all for that matter. Nova shot up into an alert upright position in bed, the sheets rapidly thrown across the bed causing a sudden gush of wind to be blown across the room. To her surprise you were sitting down at the edge of the bed, not wanting to wake the girls by asking vocally, she projected her thoughts directly into your mind while maintaining a focused and worried gaze upon you. Your hands were clasped tightly over your ears, in a futile attempt to block out the sounds you were hearing which were actually the thoughts and dreams of the girls. Nova's message came into your head crystal clear, it was louder and more apparent than the other channels and it also seemed to quieten down the other thoughts.

Nova crawled rapidly across the bed on her hands and knees when she realized that you were in discomfort, wanting to know what the issue was. As she got closer she began to realize that your PI had increased, noting that she felt a stronger sensation and presence of psionic energy as she got closer to you. She grabbed you with both hands around your shoulders and leaned in against you, you were now at least a PI 5 which meant that you could with relative ease teep into the minds of others. However, something was wrong, in other cases of PI 5 such as Delta or Shae, they had to concentrate and required some degree of effort (albeit insubstantial amounts) in order to teep into the minds of others. You were experiencing issues similar to Nova, who had issues not teeping into the thoughts of others. Whether or not that meant that you were now anywhere near Nova's level was unclear for now, but it remained highly improbable that it was the case.

Nova quickly fetched a bed gown from the side of the room and put it on before wrapping her arms around you and proceeded to carry you outside. In the commotion, Nova had managed to inadvertently wake up Shae in the process who quickly got out of bed and got the door, Delta was still fast asleep in her bed. "What's wrong with him?" Shae asked in a sincere tone, rare for Shae as she seemed to always be disinterested with most things. Nova didn't quite know where she was going, but knew she had to get to a less densely populated area of the ship away from the quarters areas. "I'm not 100%, but I think it's the terrazine kicking in" Nova quickly said as she moved with purpose through the dimly lit corridors of the ship. The idea was that Ghosts train their whole lives to try to control their teeping abilities, most of whom gained their abilities much earlier on in life which also meant that they were more accustom to being able to control and process incoming thoughts. Very rarely did anyone manage to experience this later on in life without the aid of external forces such as exposure to terazine to increase PI rating.

Nova need to give you an immediate crash course in how to control the thoughts of others and channelling them out, or in other words quietening them down to more bearable levels. A class which is generally taken during the first semester of Ghost academy. Every Ghost has their own unique way of managing to quieten down incoming thoughts, but there was a more widely accepted way, but it required a degree of effort and know how in order to accomplish. Nova needed to get you to a less densely populated area in order to allow you to have some breathing space, away from all the bombarding thoughts which would otherwise flood the minds of teeps. There were of course other physical options available such as psionic padding to literally decrease the amount of incoming thoughts.

As you got closer to the other end of the ship, towards the bridge and Captain's lounge areas; things got substantially quieter, there were still several channels of thought being passed through the air, but definitely substantially less than that was present in the dormitory areas. Nova pressed you tightly against her chest, resting her head atop of yours while Shae watched on. "Is it quieter now?" Nova asked, even though she knew the answer. You nodded, "Is that what it's normally like for you guys?" Nova shook her head reassuringly "And that's why we're here, away from everyone while we try to control this better" Nova was concerned, deep down she had fears that perhaps you had gone further than just 1 magnitude higher on the PI scale, a result which was apparently common amongst people who were exposed to terrazine.

Several hours passed, and at this point it was early dawn according to shipboard time. Your progress was slow at first, as it turned out that the theoretical applications weren't as fast acting as more practical activities to reduce and block incoming thoughts of others. However, up until now your practice area only had four, maybe five different channels to block out juxtaposed to the hundreds that would be present in the dormitory areas. Nova had decided that even with the progress made, for now you should remain on this side of the ship in order to get rest as the area also wasn't very densely populated throughout the day either. Either way, the ship was supposed to arrive at Korhal at around midday to afternoon today so in either case staying aboard this densely packed ship shouldn't be much of an issue for too much longer. The two of you got some well-deserved shut eye in before midday, falling asleep on a large couch in the centre of the Captain's lounge which wasn't occupied. Shae returned back to the room in order to make sure Delta doesn't freak out when she wakes up with nobody in the room.

As the ship began to come into orbit over the now sparsely populated Korhal, Shae was specifically asked to wake the two of you who were sealed in the Captain's Lounge as even the most fool hardy Marine refused to get within an arm's reach of Nova let alone knock on the door. Not sure what type of mood Nova was in, even Shae approached the cabin door with relative caution, opening the door with upmost levels of care so as to not prematurely wake the two of you with a horrible screeching sound which was sure to infuriate Nova which would jeopardize just about everyone on the whole ship. Luckily, Nova's body clock was fairly in check and was already in the process of waking up by the time Shae was getting to the door.

Shae ducked her head cautiously into the intentionally darkened room as all the lights had been dimmed or turned off completely. "Uhhh Nova?" Shae called out into the room, much to her surprise Nova was already upright and standing, pacing towards her which would have surely made anyone else who wasn't in the same position as Shae, fall backwards in shock. Nova's hair was lazily brushed aside to either side of her face, light puffy bags were formed underneath her emerald eyes and she lacked her trademark light pink lipstick or eye-liner. Nova was not in the mood, but knew that things had to be done, and in particular that today was supposed to be a big day for her, moving back to Korhal and all other duties expected of her today.

As Nova lazily stumbled her way across the bridge of the ship towards the nearest bathroom of some sort, her attention was diverted towards what was now the surface of Korhal. With the sun peeking over from the far edge of the planet causing an intense glare of sunlight to enter the cabin of the bridge. The intense brightness caused Nova's drooped eyes to squint and give her even more reason to want to make the hasty dash towards the bathroom even faster. Splashing the cool water over her face rapidly woke her up from her half asleep state, she looked up at the mirror in disappointment when she released she had developed rather shallow bags underneath her eyes which weren't normally present, in fact she had been keeping a rather tight sleeping schedule and abiding by it for the last few weeks or so.

As the battlecruiser drew closer to the surface of the planet, you awoke to faint image of the planet forming off in the distance, seen through a gap which had been made when Nova left the room. It was still rather loud but at least it wasn't as bad as last night you thought to yourself as you began to get up in search of Nova and the girls. Nova's psionic presence was rather immediate and apparent, it didn't take very long at all to sense where she was amongst the other "normal" terrans in this part of the ship. As Nova ducked her head out of the bathroom, it became apparent that only one of you managed to get enough sleep last night, even though it was you who ended up getting less sleep than she did. Nova smiled and came in for a hug, which ended up being more of a tackle as the Nova was particularly glad to see you, her arms flailed about and wrapped around you tightly. She was slightly taller than you were, which was most apparent when she fully stretched out her back, elongating her figure which she often didn't do around you.

The two of you proceeded towards the landing bay area of the cruiser, where your belongings were stored in the cargo hold area. Holding hands, Nova was particularly pleased showing her emotions which was fairly rare in such a public setting with a broad smile across her face and her cheeks lighting up to a light pink. It was apparent that she was very happy that you had apparently went up a PI rating last night, even though the experience on your behalf wasn't as extravagant as you had hoped it would be upon being able to read the minds and thoughts of others. Psionics was particularly intriguing, one such trait was that it didn't exactly matter what was in the way between you and your object, it mattered a heck of a lot more the distance between and as such if there just so happens to be densely populated within short confines, the experience was deafening even for more experienced ghosts.

The huge battle cruiser came to a landing on the planet's surface in a make-shift air dock located relatively close to your new residence. The gigantic reinforced cabide forged neosteel access ramp which shielded the cargo bay lowered slowly onto the dock's floor with an audible thud which echoed out across the dock. Mal was already there and waiting, opting to take a much faster and smaller ship in order to get there rather than the large and bulky battle cruiser ride which Nova had offered but declined. A series of awaiting transports were present, upon Mal's request for all of your luggage and what not as your residence was still some distance away from the dock. Delta cried out "So where are we staying!" despite the fact that the entire surface of the planet was rather smooth as the aftermath of the terraforming of the planet was still apparent. Mal turned his back away from you, off in the distance a series of sky scrapers were present, which were tall enough to be seen from all the way back here. The air was clean and clear, but the sky was tinged a deep pink and red as the afternoon carried on into the evening. "The one on the left" Mal said with a smile across his face, expecting a response which was bound to happen. Everyone's eyes lit up, even though it was barely visible from here; you all knew that it meant that a sky scraper was to be your next home.

"Now, technically since you two are all err, a thing and all, technically the tower should go under his name" Mal pointed at you "Me? What, no no no I thought it would go under Nova's" But Nova looked back at you and shook her head "We're not married yet, we're just engaged" placing a large degree of emphasis on yet. "Well, sooner or later it's gotta happ-" you cut Mal off "Well since we've essentially got to name it right now, and right now it's her tower, and her name is still legally Nova Terra, can't we just settle for Terra Tower?" Nova pulled a face, as it reminded her of Terra tower back on Tarsonis, her family's residence there was also a tower. "Whatever, we can name it later I guess, oh! Before I forget though, Nova you have several meetings lined up which must be met before the sun goes down today" handing her a tablet with a list of what seemed to be to-do actions which made her eyes roll. "Can they wait until tomorrow" Nova asked with an annoyed tone, Mal's response was a quick and sharp "Nope, all to be done today".

Nova took another look at the list, most if not all of them were related to the Academy which also meant that she wouldn't be able to check out the tower with the rest of you until much later in the evening. "I'll uhh, leave you guys to it then" Mal said while looking at Nova, expecting a response but he didn't get one. Hauler had been standing in the background silently watching on, Nova turned around and requested a medivac dropship transport from here to Ursa which was only a few minutes away at most. Before boarding her transport, Nova made everyone get a piece of her mind about being tied away to a list of duties that she was expected to complete by angrily stomping her way up the ramp. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with' Nova?" You asked out of courteousy but Nova wasn't in a talking mood. You directed the girls away to the rather large mound of possessions while you go had a talk to Nova briefly before joining them.

"Nova? Are you okay?" you asked as the darkly lit cabin of the medivac concealed whatever was inside. Suddenly, something popped into your head and realized that Nova was changing as she was still in her night robe and gown before boarding the ship. Out of the darkness Nova giggled slightly as she sensed how awkward you felt, she lit up her suit which made her visible. Nova approached you while placing her hair tie back in her hair "I'll see you at dinner" you asked but she shook her head "I don't know when I'll be home tonight, if I come home late don't stay up for me, kay?" You nodded in agreement but couldn't give her the promise that you wouldn't stay up waiting for her. Nova was fairly relaxed and carefree about the girls, she knew that she wasn't their actual mother (Which is particularly the case with Shae as she is only a few years younger than either of you were). Nova was careful about enforcing rules or boundaries upon either of them as she knew that they were both old enough to take care of themselves, particularly since they were also both ghosts which meant that both of them were very mature for their age.

While Nova was away tending to Academy duties, you and the girls had the task of moving as much of your belongings into the new residence building. Delta wanted an entire floor to herself, which would normally seem unreasonable but there really wasn't many reasons as to why her request was unreasonable. What would Nova say in this situation you thought to yourself, she was much more firm and logical with things like this. "You can have a floor to yourself, but we're still having one floor dedicated to all our bedrooms" You said calmly to Delta but she was already too busy pressing all the floors in the elevator wanting to see each and every one of them before getting to the top. It wasn't the tallest sky scraper in the city, but it was still largely overkill for what your family needed you thought to yourself. The first two floors or so was largely for the support staff of the tower, the next three were combined into one large floor which contained various trees and shrubbery to give impression of a large garden area was present inside the tower. The other 25 floors were largely empty blank canvass which could be adapted to meet whatever your family wanted. The top five floors were also yet again merged into a large function and formal dining area.

The myriad of support staff present the whole process of unloading the transports was substantially faster than anticipated. You tried to remember names, seeing as you would be seeing them a lot more often now but Shae insisted against it, saying that it was unwise to build bonds and relationships with workers. This was where your upbringing began to clash with what was reality at present, your parents had always taught you to be humble and to be generous and catering of others, but Shae's adamant tone and stance on the matter changed your mind for the moment. It was rather awkward as the night fell quickly but everyone was still wide awake as coming off of ship board time meant that it felt like it was only about midday.

As the girls began sorting out their own bedrooms, you stared out the large panes of glass which were present across the side of your room. You were about 15 floors up from the ground floors or so, rather close to the top of the tower peering down onto the empty streets. They were lit fairly well with new, state of the art street lights onto the newly paved black cement streets and lighter grey sidewalks. Various road crews were still out this late into the night working diligently expanding the road networks beyond the city limits were virtually non-existent. The entire planet was being built over from scratch, infrastructure and all; As such there wasn't exactly a huge quantity of civilians yet or people in general for that matter, mostly just business contractors and their families as well as figures of government and the human services.

The air was clean and clear, you could see the various stars of neighbouring systems and the suns of distant galaxies. You turned away from the windows to check up on how the rooms of the girls were coming along, it was the first time the two had their own rooms as they for whatever reason had opted to share one room in the previous house even though there was one or two spare. Shae's room was very simplistic with very few decorations, It was literally her bed, and her possessions spread out across the room with various shelves in a very organized manner, sorted by categories. In stark contrast Delta's room was organized chaos with her things wildly sporadically spread across the room. You wanted to tell her to clean up her room, but it would have sounded awkward as she had literally just "decorated" it to her own likings and to her own convenience.

As the long night dragged on you had begun wondering when Nova was coming home. It was the middle of winter, the temperature here was much milder here than home for winter. The sun was particularly slow to rise, having significantly shorter periods of daylight than usual during the planet's furthest rotation around the sun. Nova had discussed her wanting for an armoury and shooting range for her tower, which wasn't exactly possible or practical to have on a floor, which meant it must be underground. Going back out to the elevators which were present in the far end of each floor you noted that there was indeed an option to go underground. You elected to visit the reception floor first, to ask what was down there before paying a visit.

Your presence seemed to alarm the well-dressed people at reception, you had also unintentionally teeped into their minds as you drew closer to them. "Hey, uhh what's in the basement?" you asked as an open question without directing your attention on any one of them in particular. Before they could open their mouths or mutter out a response to your question you had managed to determine the answer for yourself. Nevertheless you let sat through their jumbled up responses as a list of different things was presented to you detailing what was in the basement. Upon being asked if you needed anything else you had decided against doing so as it felt like you were torturing them into giving you answers as it was clear they were overly trying to give a good impression about themselves.

As the day went on it was more apparent that Nova wasn't coming home, she called earlier to say that she'll be home late, once again reiterating to not stay up for her but you were going to try your very best to keep awake. Both the girls tuckered themselves out exploring and running about the tower, even Shae showed her rare playful side as she chased Delta up and down the tower, causing all sorts of mayhem and scaring the staff. It was the most fun either of them had in a while, so you didn't want to stop either of them, after all even you wanted to check out the other floors but so far you had only sorted out the basement areas. It contained a large underground firing range as well as a relatively large armoury which had just about enough to supply a small army for a few days. It surprised you how large it was, but figured that if Nova had her way it would have been even larger than it was.

As the evening drew closer, the staff had prepared dinner, a drastic change from what used to be back at home. They served three main meals a day, as if it were a hotel and they were very meticulous about it as well, arriving on the dot at the times a day with an assortment of dishes. They supplied more than enough food at each meal, back at home their proportions would easily feed you all for an entire day. You had specifically instructed them to cut back on the serving sizes which were rather over the top, your instructions were seen sooner than you expected as dinner began rolling out.

Nova made it very clear that with her presence things were going to be different in the Ghost Academy. As her new position of Dean of Psionics, her level of authority was one short of the director himself. Her position of Dean was to overlook the entire training regime and programme of Ghosts both current and future. Upon her arrival back at the academy she stepped through the doors with an air of change. Nova made it a point that she don her suit and plating even in her office, a far cry from the formal wear which her predecessors always wore. Nova always saw it as out of place that Sarco was almost never seen in a suit, it almost suggested that he was never a ghost himself. The idea of the suits in the first place was to gain a sense of commonality between them, a uniform which made nobody special, everyone was equally placed, with the only determining factor involved was the individuals PI rating.

Technically however, Nova wasn't to be officially recognized as the Dean before her inauguration ceremony, which she wasn't particularly fond of as it would mean a large function and most probably a ball gown which she hadn't been in since her fifteenth birthday ceremony. Nova also had a fresh take on the instructors, as the change in Deans also meant a chance to change and swap around the instructors where she see fit. Nova wanted Shae as the head of physical training, during Shae's time at the academy she was most notably known for managing to almost completely incapacitate Sergeant Hartley which virtually nobody could do, let alone Shae in her first year. Nova remembered her encounter with him during her time at the academy, figuring that it would be a bitter encounter for her to do it face to face she opted to simply send her assistant with the message.

Nova also made a bold move by also removing her head instructor of psionics from her position, opting to do it herself to get herself closer to the students, being able to get a deeper understanding of each individual student by firsthand account was important to her. It gave a perspective which could not be done by simply reading up on an individual's papers and documents. More importantly it allowed her to decide who was ready for graduation and who clearly wasn't despite achievements and accomplishments they may have. In a matter of hours Nova had managed to tip the academy upside down with changes on her very first day, by now she was feeling the effects of a poor night's sleep she had last night. Nova stood up at her desk and peered out her window to what was left of Tarsonis, and in particular where her residency lay at present in the ruins of what was Augustgrad. The planet had a strange metallic sheen to it, as the sun's rays seemed to reflect off of the planet's surface in certain spots where surface smelting occurred, whereby the surface of the planet was superheated to level the remains of fallen and destroyed buildings.

As night fell Nova realized that she had stayed awake for far longer than she expected, Korhal had a fairly regular day night cycle which meant that she had been awake now for almost 24 hours post having a poor sleep the night before. She opted to go home even though there was still much to be done in terms of getting things in order, not that there was anything physically preventing her from getting up and leaving, much less a person who had the authority to tell her otherwise. Back at home things were silent, most of the staff had gone home and now the few souls who watched over the residence during the night shift were present, much fewer than the periods during the day. For the most part you had spent the last few hours trying to stay awake by pacing back and forth on the upper floors, particularly around the large tables that were present in the formal dining area. But even you had given way by now, you lay passed out on a chair with your head in your arms hunched over the table with a note.

As Nova reached home, walking in through the large glass panel doors of the reception floor the various people who were still diligently working away in during the night shift all stood to attention. Nova skipped all the pleasantries, opting to simply teep to find out all the details she wanted to know, she was surprised to find out that you were apparently slumped over a table in the upper floors. Nova wondered if you were drinking, but figured it wasn't in your character as she proceeded hastily towards the elevators at the far end of the building. She was happy with all she had seen thus far, but she was particularly curious as to the reports of you being slumped over on a table in the top floors so she skipped all the other floors in between in order to investigate. As the elevator came to a halt in the top floor her eyes immediately drew towards the ceiling which had a huge glass dome surrounded by four large pillars which seemed to flow from the four corners of the building and extended out onto the roof before arcing inwards.

Much to her relief Nova figured you simply just fell asleep trying to wait up for her, to her surprise she found the note in your hands as she tried to pick you up off the table to bring you back to bed. "Wake me up if you haven't had anything to eat" it read, which reminded her that she only sparsely ate throughout the day, opting against eating what could only be described as nutritional gruel that the cafeteria served at the academy. In her mind it was on par with if not worse than MRE's which she particularly despised the taste of. Nova bit her lip, she didn't want to wake you up but at the same time she didn't exactly want to go back downstairs to the staff and ask for them to make her a meal either, she settled with the former. Nova wasn't sure how to wake you, but then she figured a much simpler way, a poke to the nose which was bound to wake you.

Nova removed her glove and gauntlets before pressing softly against your nose with her index finger which had immediate results. Your face immediately cringed out of discomfort which made Nova giggle with laughter, knowing that it was a sure fire way to wake you from a slumber. You went to open your mouth, but Nova quickly butted in with "Nah ah ah, teep". You smiled but your attention quickly turned elsewhere suddenly, something wasn't right, you weren't sure what it was but something definitely wasn't right. Nova's face of glee quickly turned to one of concern when your attention quickly snapped away from her. You quickly got out of the chair and raced towards the elevators, Nova kept pace "Will! What is it?" To be honest you weren't quite sure what it was which gave you a grave feeling, but something inside you said you should quickly get to the girls in their beds.

As the elevator reached the dormitory floor your attention darted towards Shae and Delta's rooms which were side by side next to each other, with Delta's closer to the elevator than Shae's. You sprinted towards Delta's room, opening her door to find her fast asleep with seemingly nothing out of the ordinary which was then when your head seemed to move on its own towards Shae's room next door. Nova was already there and kicked her door in. Shae lay flat on her back in bed, with her head tilted back towards the wall revealing an awfully straight neck. You placed your hand against her forehead which revealed a high fever, her moans along with fast and shallow breaths made Nova run outside and back to the elevator which had a direct link to the staff below, but she didn't want the ambulance, they were too slow for how desperately she needed them, she wanted a medivac right here, right now. Her condition was worsening, as she began sweating despite the cool night and only wearing a shirt and pants, you quickly went to turn on the lights and open her balcony doors to allow the air to get in. "Shae are you okay?" you repeatedly asked but by now she appeared to be delirious but still didn't move her head.

As the medivac touched down outside Shae began shouting and screaming, flailing her arms in the air and covering her face, but still she didn't move her head. Her thoughts were all over the place, but something told you that she was screaming out against the lights of her room which made you shot up out of her bed and turned out the lights which reduced her screaming to deep moans of pain. By now she was sweating profusely, causing her pillow and sheets to be wet to the touch with her sweat. As the medics came in through her door they asked you to roll her over onto her side as they pulled out a fairly sizeable needle. They were going to perform a lumbar puncture into her spine to retrieve CSF, suspecting the cause was Meningititis based on her symptoms displayed and what Nova had described to them as they were coming.

You cringed as the needle went into her spine, Shae cried out in discomfort as it went in which only made things harder for you to bare. Nova saw the amount of dedication you had to her, wanting to constantly be at her side. Was it jealousy she was feeling? She thought to herself but quickly put it to the back of her mind as the results of the CSF came back. "Is she going to be okay?" you asked desperately to the medic who was standing in the door way, she nodded her head "But she's going to have a rough few days ahead of her while it clears up" your attention quickly reverted back to Shae who was receiving IV fluids along with a series of injections containing a virtually every variety of antibiotic they had.

(My Notes) Wasn't sure how to end this chapter, was also deciding on whether or not this chapter should be split into two separate ones but figured there wasn't an exact point where the chapter diverted or split well enough for me to want to split it. Further notes is that I do expect that the end is near for this story, as my ideas become fairly limited in what I can really come up with for now (may change) but I hope to further put a larger degree of time and effort into my other story (Nova came knocking) as this one feels as if I'm forced into limiting my creativity with as it's gone on for so long, and the characters in it are so developed that there really isn't that much wriggle room available for me to move. As always if you have a positive or negative response to this chapter or any of the previous ones feel free to drop a line.


	10. Chapter 10

You sat down in a chair with Shae and Delta standing by your sides, watching on at the live feed from Nova's cell. It was all a blur and a daze what had happened in the early hours of this morning, most of it was in complete darkness so you couldn't quite see what was happening. Nova howled in pain, she looked defeated and somewhat remorseful for what she had done, but in Shae's eyes she could not be forgiven. Shae had given the direct order for Nova to be locked up after what had happened, you disagreed, thinking that she was sane by now but Shae was taking no chances. Shae was adamant that she spend the next few days at the very least in rehabilitation, which meant that she would receive excessive doses of Neuroleptics to keep her psionic powers inhibited while in custody.

You thoroughly disagreed with this, wanting to think that this was just a one off instance but in truth it wasn't for the last few nights. Nova had been suffering from PTSD the last few years but never had she lashed out quite like she did in the last few days, much less last night when she almost killed you in your sleep. It was an issue you had promised to be there for her, be by her side and hold her hand through but now more than ever it was apparent that you couldn't be there for her, particularly when she escalated to a psychotic state where she would do harm not only to herself but others around her. You had the impression that perhaps because you meant something to her that even in a psychotic trance she would not harm you, you reassured her of this but the events of last night clearly made it apparent that this was not the case.

Nova had made it clear to you and the girls that it was her own issue, an issue that she would battle by herself and she displayed a particular disliking when you tried to bring it up with her. She had opted into fighting a silent war against it and as time dragged on it was becoming apparent that she was losing the battle with herself, things had greatly escalated in the last week even though she appeared normal and in her loving self by day she was different at night and in particular during her sleep. She would wake up traumatized and often times find herself sitting upright in bed, it was affecting her mentally and she began worrying that it had begun to affect her mental state of mind as well as cognitive ability to make decisions, she opted into taking time away from being the head of Psionics during the week, making Shae the acting head of the academy in her absence.

It was blurry and shaky, but from what you remembered it was in the early hours of the morning when Nova began beating down on you. The room was completely dark, pitch black which was unusual considering the large amount of windows the room had, but it mattered not. Nova was fully capable of seeing things and having depth perception in low light conditions, even without the use of special hardware.

Nova was sitting upright in the bed, watching down upon you while you were sleeping. She sat down on top of you, restricting your movements greatly; not that it would have mattered anyway since you didn't notice anything was amiss and you remained in a relative deep sleep. It was only when she moved her hand up against your neck and began choking you did you realize what she was doing. At first you thought it was an intruder, but you realized Nova wasn't by your bedside and her long streaks of hair which had become all too familiar to you fell down onto your face. A familiar scent further making things a lot clearer, not that it helped as she now began tightening down her grip onto your neck. Her finger nails like talons were now tearing into your neck as now she began screaming out at you. You managed to yelp out a very muffled "Nova! Stop!" but her assault didn't let up.

You began wondering why she would begin to try and choke you before anything else, there was plenty of other ways she could have done harm to you but she opted into a more physical option. She moved one of her hands away from your neck, but her left hand was still fastened tightly around your throat blocking your airway. Your hands fastened around her dominant hand that was secured around your neck but it was of no use as it was firmly locked around your throat. As you began to get light headed due to a lack of oxygen, Nova ramped up her psychotic assault by slashing away at your mid-section with enough intensity to immediately begin drawing blood and forming cuts in an animalistic way. Before you passed out she had begun ramming her arm into your opened up mid-section as she had made relative ease through your skin.

Shae could tell something was amiss and so could Delta, and Nova's screams emanating from your room down the hall only further made the matter more apparent. Her screams weren't of pain, but more wild and psychotic which made Shae even more alarmed as by now she could only sense the presence of you and Nova in the room, she had to act fast and on her feat right now if she had any chance.

Shae leapt out of her bed just as Delta did the same, she moved down the hallway at a blindingly fast speed and began to rear up. The bedroom doors you had installed on this floor were designed to be relatively fortified, they weren't neosteel carbide doors by any means but they could survive enough blunt trauma to at least give the occupants of the room a fighting chance in the event someone was trying to break into them. Shae reared up in the hallway before letting out a very powerful kick to the door which shattered the door in two lengthways, gaining entry into the room. It had only now become apparent to both Shae and Delta what was happening, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

By now your blood covered much of the bed and sheets as well as most of Nova's upper body as she piled into you. Delta screamed out "Mommy! What are you doing!" but Nova wasn't fazed by this, completely ignoring the chaos which had just erupted into the room. Shae had to act right now if she had any hope in saving you, she came at Nova with the intent of killing or incapacitating but held back at the very last second opting to incapacitate instead of kill just before she lifted her leg up to deliver a blow. In Shae's books incapacitate meant that she wouldn't go for the head, anything below it was fair game; an ideology she had passed onto her students at the ghost academy.

Shae rapidly ran up to the bedside, she lifted her leg and delivered a round house kick to Nova's rib cage which struck Nova with enough force and intensity to blow her all the way across to the side of the room, shattering numerous ribs and lodging her arm into the wall breaking it in the process but also incapacitating her as Nova's peeled back and slammed heavily into the wall causing her to instantly be knocked unconscious. Nova's hair ran red with blood that wasn't hers and the trail of various bodily fluids and both dark and bright red blood smeared across the floor all the way back to where you lay on the bed.

You lay unconscious in the bed, but were breathing rapidly causing even more blood to flow out of you, Shae needed to administer first raid right now if she had any hope in making sure you didn't die. Delta ran out of the room in order to get medical services to arrive on scene while Shae began fanatically screaming "Stay with me Will!" as she clasped her hands tightly over the top of you and began to administer psionic healing. Her lessons with Nova had allowed her to better treat people, but she was still very capable of administering care to which rivalled even Nova's capabilities despite being of much lower PI than her. Shae had the grizzly task of stuffing your intestines back into place which normally wouldn't be such a big deal to her but this time it was of someone she cared about, she found it hard to hold back tears at this point but knew she had to continue.

As you woke up in hospital with a bloodied Shae by your side and Delta curled up against you in bed your immediate thoughts was where Nova was. Nobody quite got a very good night's rest and as such even Shae was having a hard time keeping her head held high as she leaned back against the white walls of the intensive care unit. Delta had clearly cried herself to sleep as your pillow was moist with a hint of salt in the air, your eyes darted around the room as it somewhat expected Nova to be in another bed in the same room but she wasn't.

You tried to get up out of bed but it was no use, your entire mid-section burned when you tried to do so, causing you to shout in pain when you tried it which made Delta and Shae abruptly wake up and come to your side. Delta shouted out "Daddy!" as she began tearing up and clasped her arms around you. "Delta, sweetie where's Mommy?" you asked but her eyes welled up even further, Shae was right to the point "She tried to kill you Will" but you still wanted to know "Shae, where is Nova" you pressed the question and wanted an answer but Shae was still avoiding it. "She tried to kill you Will, and you're still worried about her?" You were forced into teeping her in order to find out as it was apparent she wasn't in a talking mood about the matter.

You tried to force yourself out of bed in order to find out yourself, "Easy tiger, let's not pull out all those stitches shall we" Shae got closer and helped you up out of bed. You couldn't walk on your own and was forced into doing a weird hopping motion in order to get around. Every step or hop for that matter was hell for you, as you had to physically move your mid-section in order to move yourself forward. Shae found it touching that even though she had tried to kill you, you still had enough care about her wellbeing in order to go look into her condition. "Because I love her Shae, and when you love people you tend to do things that may sound a little paradoxical sometimes" Shae formed a grin across her face "So you'd do that if it were me?" she asked with a genuine curiosity but it sounded sarcastic. "I've already done it for you before Shae, remember?" you were referring to her bout of Meningitis "And yes it counts" which made Shae roll her eyes.

Nova was being held in a cell and she had been administered high quantities of Neuroleptics to dull her senses both psionic and rational. The drugs had various side effects which didn't sit right with you, they made her extremely tired but also kept her restless which made her largely dazed and confused, slurring her words and remaining largely floor bound unable to walk around or move very much at all. In high enough doses it could potentially kill her, they were already doubling up on doses because of the risk she posed as a PI 10 in the event she fought back, more than twice the recommended dose used on regular captive or criminal Ghosts / Spectres was administered every hour. On the other hand it also numbed and dulled the senses which made the pain of several broken bones in her body bearable.

You sat upright out of the chair without the assistance of Shae, it outraged you to see her like this and you demanded to be brought to her cell immediately. "She's clearly fine now Shae, look at her" Nova lay dazed and confused with her back against the wall and planted squarely on the ground, it pained you to see her like this. Part of you wanted to believe that even if she was still psychotic there was still a part of her sanity in there, as if she was completely gone she would have surely killed you psionically rather than physically ripping into you, nor would she had willingly let herself be taken down by Shae so easily.

As you approached her cell you noted that she seemingly noticed your presence, her head tilted towards the direction of where you were approaching from and she let out a soft howl as she tried to make eye contact with you. Even under the influence of Neuroleptics she could still make out your psionic signature. Your eyes lit up when she noticed your presence, "Nova?" you cried out as you leaned in against the field which surrounded her. Shae let go of you at this point knowing that she should give you two a moment of intimacy between each other. You began to tear up as you began to repeat "It's okay Nova". She began to tear up and wail in her cell as she couldn't force herself any closer to you, her legs wouldn't budge and she just lacked energy all round preventing her from getting any closer.

"Shae get this door open" you said in a monotone voice maintaining eye contact with her, you knew she was in there at this point, but the drugs were taking its toll on her. "I'm going in with you, just in case Will" she pressed as she began to slowly drop the field that surrounded her. You fell to your knees and began to crawl towards her, Shae knew that she shouldn't help you up at this point as you began to crawl towards Nova as your legs were still not quite agreeing with you. As the field completely dropped security assigned to ensure that she remained in check raised their rifles solely at her head. Shae hissed and ordered them to lower their weapons which seemingly calmed Nova down.

As you crawled towards her and got closer, the damage she took from last night only began to reveal itself. "Why hasn't she been treated for her injuries?" you pressed the question loudly to which Shae replied "The meds, if they're working properly she shouldn't be feeling a thing, and I can reassure you that she is not feeling any pain Will". It made you bitter, knowing that they hadn't treated her while you got all the care in the world, it didn't matter to you that she wasn't experiencing any pain, it mattered that she not be in any pain at all.

Nova's green eyes were barely exposed as her eye lids were barely lifted just enough to gain a visual perspective of her surroundings, in reality she was trying very hard to keep her eyes open when they wanted to close. You reached out for her hand, it was still soaked in your blood which had dried up, she also hadn't had a change of clothes which meant that she was still in her night gown from last night which was soaked in blood and smelled foul. Your hand clasped hers gently, her fingers began to close in around yours as a tear began to fall down the side of her face which remained blank. Delta at this point wailed loudly and wanted to jump in but knew this wasn't the time and place, Shae physically held her back placing her body between Delta and the both of you.

"Nova?" you asked as you got in closer, it was apparent that by now she meant no harm. You wiped the tear from her face before tightly clenching your arms around her chest being careful to avoid broken bones and not moving her all too much to prevent further injury to either one of you. Even you at this point began to cry, Nova managed to barely make out "I'm sorry Will". You raised your head level with hers and pressed your forehead against hers where you then turned silent with tears running down both your faces.

"Shae, heal her and stop the drugs" Shae hesitated but knew you were adamant about this by both your tone and how sincere you sounded. Normally she would question things, wanting to know whether or not you actually meant what you said, but this time she was sure that you meant what you said, but before she did anything she wanted to check whether Nova had dominated you and made you said that. Shae got closer to see if Nova's psionic power had risen but it hadn't and there was no evidence to suggest that you were being controlled, she got in closer and came up from behind where she began to administer psionic healing, but she knew Nova would still need a cast on her arm as it was practically destroyed when it lodged into the wall. Nova also sustained a fairly large bruise on her forehead which she checked whether or not it was placing any pressure on her brain, she was thankful that this was negative.

Nova was vulnerable, both emotionally and physically. As Shae backed away from Nova after healing her leaving the two of you together. Nova dipped her head low and kept her eyes away from you trying to not make eye contact, she was not proud of herself after what she had done to you. She was very disappointed in herself and showed a great deal of remorse for what she had done to you albeit rather silently. You held her tightly in your arms as you nuzzled her neck as she had made it clear that she wasn't quite ready for closer interactions. She didn't quite feel as if you had fully forgiven her yet and subsequently she was a mental wreck as she was unsure of the situation.

You caressed your arm around her shoulder and placed the other around her legs and tried to lift her up forgetting how much pain you were in. Shae rapidly paced over with Delta in tow, Shae lifted the two of you up to an awaiting stretcher placing you both down on it side by side. You placed your head on top of Nova's as she whimpered and quivered with uncertainty as to what was happening. "Easy Nova, It's okay, sleep it off" Nova broke down into tears, she tried to choke back tears but soon enough she began wailing as she began to regain her psionic abilities.

You had forgiven her, even without a formal apology from her. Shae watched on and what you had told her earlier flashed back in her mind, she bit her lip down as she began getting emotional, which was very rare for her. Shae took off her parka and gently put it on Nova who was still only wearing her night gown, she raised the hood above her head as a sign that she too had forgiven her. The bond between you and Shae was very strong and it was symbolic to her that if you had forgiven her, so should she.

As the neuroleptics began to wear off it became more apparent that the cast should be made on Nova's arm while the effects were still active instead of putting her under local anaesthesia which she had a particular disliking for. She screamed out in pain as her arm was lifted up, it was fractured in several places which was amazing considering Shae didn't touch her arm. Shae had managed to heal up the larger fractures and muscle damage but the arm still needed to remain still for the next few days to weeks at the very least under doctors' orders. "Sorry Nova" Shae said sincerely placing her hands gently on Nova's arm.

As the days ahead went on and Nova spent most of her time recuperating, both you and girls played a larger time with her in relation to her past traumatic experiences. Nova still woke up in the middle of the night with cold sweats but they were becoming less frequent as time went on, improvements were being made and eventually she came back to her position at the academy albeit with much less hours than she normally spent. Shae also speculated that it was the countless hours spent at the academy which also contributed to her decline, as even she had now become mentally exhausted from taking the position these last few weeks.

Notes: It's here where I would like to say that I'm no particular expert in the field of PTSD or any serious mental issues (Other than it being briefly covered in a highschool Psychology course I did) so If it portrayed the condition in a negative light or overly exaggerated it more than it was then I'd like to say I'm sorry in advance.

This chapter I feel further reiterates the crucial role Shae has in the family (Delta took a back seat this chapter I know). Also would like to once again mention that Shae is absurdly strong, physically and she takes most of her physical appearance and behavioural characteristics of Korra from Legend of Korra, her casual attire (Ie. When she's not in a ghost suit) is also similar to Korra's.

It's implied that there was a substantial amount of time between the last chapter and this one, approximately a month or more (even I haven't fully decided how long it was, but nothing too absurd like a year or anything) but I don't strictly mention it, even though the recovery from Meningitis itself isn't too long with the right treatment, we can assume that by Shae having a full recovery it could potentially be between a week to a month.

Last but not least different way of starting a chapter, I kinda like it and I feel that it really suited to this chapter and how it played out. Only thing I found particularly tricky was how to link it when it came full circle in terms of timeline. Once again if you have a positive or negative comment in relation to this chapter or any of the previous ones feel free to leave a review or PM me c:

Oh and one last note, if your a good artist and have a really sweet Nova drawing and would like to have your image displayed as the cover image to my work then feel free to send me a link to it and I will probably use it as my cover to all my stories.


	11. Chapter 11

Nova was released early from Hospital, she had yet to undergo her planned psychiatric assessment but more important things were planned. Not to mention the things on her mind were still very apparent, and she was adamant that there wasn't anything they could have offered her to consolidate on her mental state of mind. She was a mental trainwreck, and your subconsciousness wasn't adding any relief, in fact that's the primary reason why she's insecure at the moment.

Nevertheless, more important matters were at hand and for at least one night the both of you needed to at the very least pretend that everything was okay. It was Nova's inauguration ball as the dean of Psionics at the academy whereby she would officially be sworn in as the departmental head of Psionics. Nova checked out of the hospital with the cast removed early at her request but the pain still lingered so she didn't do much strenuous activity with her right arm, opting to keep it at her side most of the time.

As the lot of you exited the hospital to the awaiting arranged transports, you held Nova's arm in tow to which Nova was still reluctant to agree to. Truth was she could tell that your subconscious state of mind had not yet fully forgiven her, which is to say that your mind still acted on its own when she got close. Emotionally and logically you had very much forgiven her, but it was clear that through your shaking and rather unexplained nervousness when she got close that things weren't quite the way they were prior to the incident.

It annoyed you greatly as it also made Nova feel very vulnerable as she couldn't come close in without triggering some sort of response from you. It was as if your body had automatically assumed the flight option on its own whenever she approached, kind of like how you felt about her when you both first met many years ago at the bar. It angered you as these feelings were keeping both you and her from making a full recovery, which made you consider the option of going to the psychiatric assessment yourself, to have yourself checked out and find ways to overcome it, but you also had your hands tied as you also had to be there at the inauguration ceremony. Well, you didn't have to be there but you strongly felt that you should be there during Nova's ceremony.

Delta tried to keep things in good spirit though, which was nice of her. Trying to distract the two of you to how spectacular tonight was going to be; after all your premises was hosting the function in its upper levels which the staff had been preparing for during the last few weeks. A selection of various banquets exotic in nature as per usual which the staff were always keen on doing with all the best the system had to offer in terms of decorations and floral arrangements. Even after all the hard work Delta had tried to make light of the situation, Nova could only hardly make out a forced grin. If Nova wasn't looking forward to this function a month ago, she definitely wasn't looking forward to it today.

As the evening drew near, and you were in your separate rooms Nova sat alone in the bedroom without the lights turned on as the evening was coming in. She sat at the base of the bed, staring blankly at the door which was clearly newly installed while she was in the hospital. "Nova, can I come in?" Shae politely knocked even though both she and Nova knew she was there. In truth Nova hadn't spoken very much at all since leaving the incident, nor did she make many efforts to talk about it either. Shae let herself in, but slowly opened the door to see a droopy eyed Nova staring blankly back at her. She was hunched forward still in Shae's parka which was given to her earlier in the week. "So you're still wearing my parka huh?" Shae asked trying to open conversation but Nova remained utterly disinterested and somewhat melancholic. "So you're not in a talking mood still I take it then" Shae began conversing with herself at this point as clearly it was a one sided conversation she was having. "Y'know you should really be getting dressed for your inauguration" she said as she sat down next to Nova on the bed.

Shae placed her hand on Nova's shoulder but she was still not giving any signs back that she was even half interested in what Shae had to say. She noted that Nova hadn't placed her arm through the sleeve while her left arm was still in the same way she had put it on for her earlier in the week. "Should I call Will up?" which finally evoked a response, albeit very short lived as it was a simple and clear cut "No" in a very monotone voice. Shae was alarmed as teeping into her mind revealed that almost no thought went into that, as if it was muscle reflex which made that response. Nova wasn't there, it was simply an outline of who she was at the moment, as if her body was on auto-pilot and she just wasn't home.

Shae began to think of what to say at this point to try to lift Nova's spirits, the usual suspects crossed her mind and words of solidarity and consolation didn't quite feel right, nor applicable to the situation she was going through. Shae wrapped her arms around Nova's shoulders, being careful not to cut too close to her arm "Nova, if it means anything I think Will would really like it if you could just try to enjoy yourself tonight". A sense of emotion passed through Nova's headspace, after a brief period of silence Nova sighed "You're right, I guess I should, shouldn't I?" Shae lifted her arms and smiled showing a sense of support even though Nova visually remained emotionless. Shae decided that it was best she leave her alone to sort herself out rather than pressing the matter on her, "I'll come back later to check up on you" she said with a smile before quietly exiting the room and shutting the door silently behind her.

To Shae's surprise you were waiting outside, almost waiting for her. "How is she?" you asked but Shae looked back at you with a stern expression "She's seen better days" you could tell that she was very concerned about Nova's mental state and so were you but you knew that it wasn't quite the time and place for you to waltz on in there since her issue seemed to primarily be with you. With that in mind Shae slowly paced down the hall to her own room where she had to begin preparations for her own look for tonight's occasion leaving you stuck in the hallway. Just before she went into her room, Shae bluntly said "I still think you should go in there, at the very least" which seemed to form a large pit in your stomach thinking about it.

You sat outside the room for a little while longer, thinking to yourself as to what the best course of action should be when suddenly the lights turned on inside the room. At first you thought that maybe it was a sign she was ready for you, but at the same time you figured as the evening was coming closer the only logical thing to do was to turn on the lights or if the lights themselves were left in the automated feature which neither of you really used but could never the less be an option at this point. You were making excuses yourself at this point, reasons as to why you shouldn't open that door and face her, risking making things worse.

To your surprise Nova had begun opening the door, the metal door handle began to creak and twist open. "Nova?" you asked as your attention quickly diverted to the door, but she herself had not gone and physically opened the door, making it apparent that she had teeked it open. Nova was leaning back against the same wall but inside the room in the only real dress that she owned, but even then you had rarely ever seen her wear it these past few years. She began to snivel which forced you up into an upright position and swung your head into the room. She had begun to tear up and weep, now it was your turn to push through the fire and flames, suppressing your subconscious mind into rushing towards her and holding her.

You held her tightly in your arms as she bawled and cried rather loudly. "It's okay Nova, let it out" she began to squeeze you rather tightly considering she had limited mobility in one arm. She wrapped her head against your neck, pressing softly down onto the back of your neck with her chin as she began to calm down. You lifted her up and placed her down onto the bed in an upright position and began to dry up her tears with your sleeve. You patted gently against her cheeks trying to avoid removing some of the make-up she had applied. Shae and Delta were standing by at the door when you entered the room. Shae had just finished her formal look while Delta had already had hers ready for the better part of the last few hours and was helping out upstairs. Nova formed what appeared to be a smile across her face as she tried to force her arms wide open for a family hug.

Nova opted for a very much more simplified and simplistic look compared to the rather extravagant route that the girls had taken. If she had her way she definitely would have just opted into attending in her ghost suit but the girls egged her onto wearing something a little bit more fancy and elegant for the occasion. She donned a simple creaseless black dress that went all the way down her ankles but revealed a portion of her outer leg. She also didn't quite do anything too fancy in the ways of make-up either, opting into wearing what she would normally wear if she needed to be out of the building on that day. What intrigued you the most was that she had opted into letting her hair down, unusual as she almost always had her hair tied up.

As the elevator reached the top floors and opened revealing the large and open area that was the upper function hall, the lights and sound overwhelmed the four of you. Photographers and various media were covering the function and as such a flurry of lights seemed to explode at your face which made you flinch at first but you were reminded by Delta to try to look happy and joyful as you paced slowly towards the centre podium area in the middle of the room. There were various people scattered throughout the hall, seated and standing they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, trying their best to ignore the fact that it was anything but for Nova.

Recent events which had plagued the family had made headlines even though it was under wraps and kept private for the most part. Concerns were had amongst the staff and event goers that the event may be cancelled altogether but Nova's fast recovery had silenced all the rumours that had come up. The local media were intent on uncovering any signs that Nova had not yet fully recovered and were sure to capture every moment of the evening, much to Nova's dismay as she had hoped that they wouldn't even be there, much less focusing on her every move she made. It seemed that even when she was smiling, they seemed to be trying to draw conclusions as to what was actually happening behind the scenes, the trigger fingers on the various cameras around the room seemed to go wild the moment she did anything at all.

You held her hand as the two of you slowly paced towards the centre of the room, constantly trying to remember to smile as you walked up the central isle of the room that was carpeted out with a very dark coloured print, a very deep and earthy chocolate colour which seemed to make Nova's dress and ankle boots stand out even further. Nova wasn't use to this amount of attention drawn towards her to say the least, even as a child she had not received this much attention even during her own fifteenth birthday which was a giant ball held by her father in her name. You noted the heel length of her boots were rather high considering her dislike for heeled footwear, she really was trying tonight to give the impression that she had made a full recovery when mentally, you knew that not only she had a very long ways to go but so did you in order to being back on track.

As the evening drew to an end with Nova reading out the final parts of her speech your attention was drawn to her mouth and general posture. It was a relatively long speech, but not overly lengthy to cause any issues. Your eyes fixated upon her mouth, to an extent where you couldn't concentrate on anything but her mouth and what she was saying and how she said it. A heightened state of awareness had overcome you, you became hypersensitive to Nova. Delta was closest to you, she was sat right next to you when she felt that something was grabbing your attention. "Daddy are you okay?" she whispered into your ear, but you weren't there, Delta reached to grasp your hands trying to snap you out of the state of trance you were in but it was apparent that it was having no effect on you.

Delta's attention slowly drew to where Nova was standing, nothing was out of the usual but now Nova had noticed that something was amiss with you, it caught the corner of her eye but she continued on with the rest of her speech. Delta turned around and teeped at Shae to come on over as clearly something was wrong with you, by now Nova knew whatever it was, it was serious enough to need Shae to come on over. Shae hurried on over, making her way slowly through the crowd as her heels clomped on the ground rather loudly as she made her way over, becoming quieter as she stepped onto the chocolate coloured carpet towards the central podium area where the family had been seated for the better part of the evening.

Your body was locked up, you felt that you could move your hands but your mind decided that something was more important, and that something was Nova. Your mind was locked in a state of trance trying to decipher what it was trying to tell itself, it annoyed you because you knew the answer somewhere deep down inside you but it was as if communications were severed somewhere in your head, preventing you from being able to tell yourself what you already knew. Nova's attention was drawn towards you inexplicably as she stood at the base of the podium when she noticed slurring with her speech.

The moment the slurs came about you snapped out your state of trance but it was apparent that the issue with Nova had suddenly became the priority. Shae and Delta was sat down by your side and were confused just as you were as to what had just happened, but similar to the time when you had sensed that Shae had meningitis, your mind was telling you something was amiss with Nova's current condition. A grave expression crossed your face as Nova forced out the last few lines of her acceptance speech. You could see her legs begin to twitch as if they were about to give way, but your attention diverted back up to her face.

It was only now that your attention drew towards her unusually moist brow, indicative of excessive sweating which you had passed off as perhaps feeling anxious and nervous during her speech. It was too late now though, and the latter stages of her symptoms became more apparent as she was now beginning to lose consciousness. You rapidly got out of your seat and sprinted towards her as she was on her way down, you were fairly close to her so you had managed to catch her right before most of her body was going to slam into the ground.

The crowd erupted into hysteria as the residential staff began to usher people up and out of their seats and back away from the two of you standing at the podium. The media were up and out of their seats, letting out a flurry of camera shots at your expense. Delta screamed and let out a pyro assault against the cameras, she did not want the family to be seen this way and was adamant to not have Nova or any of you be depicted in a negative light, even though she could tell that was their very attention right from the start of the evening. Shae grabbed Nova's legs as you caressed your arms gently around her shoulders and placed her head into your elbow. Shae had opted into a much more physical approach to get through the thick crowd of media towards the stretcher which was being moved into the hall from the elevator.

Nova needed you in her life, it was an emotionally symbiotic relationship whereby you needed her just as much as she needed you. You kept her mind off of the things of the past for her, she was moving forward and looking forward to her future with you as a means to escape the memories which she had purposely laid dormant at the back of her mind which reminded her of her past, before meeting you. The last week and a bit without you had lead her into a mentally traumatized state as not only was she separated from you, but she felt as if it was solely her fault that things were the way they are. Even though in reality you were always a few feet away, she could tell that emotionally the two of you were miles apart from one another.

This depression and anxiety she had meant that she refused most interactions with others, opting once again to fight this silent war with herself and not involving other people in it. This lead to starving herself, only eating bare minimal amounts of food even though copious amounts of it was provided by hospital staff post retrieval from her cell and isolation unit. She had starved herself of necessary nutrients, the bare minimum in order to keep her body functioning; only eating scarce amounts when she was on the verge of starvation which occurred rather frequently. You knew this wasn't healthy but it was the option and path she had taken, and there wasn't much more any one of you, the girls included could do as she had teeped herself locked in her room in absolute silence, no howling or crying.

Despite having eaten things tonight however, the effects of starving herself were only now apparent and becoming a larger issue. A lack of nutrients over the last week and the over exertion on her part tonight led to her sudden loss of consciousness. This was particularly evident now as she lay in her bed, her cheekbones were more apparent and slightly more visible. The outlines of her ribs were also visible in her chest as she took shallow breaths with her ventilator mask strapped loosely to her face. An IV was dripping vital fluids and much needed nutrients directly into her blood stream, which had to be replaced every few hours.

You sent both of the girls off to their rooms for the night, even though Delta really wanted to stay by Nova's side but she had school in the morning and couldn't afford to be missing out on much sleep. Initially you sat in a small chair by the bed but as the night went on it was becoming apparent that she wouldn't be waking up any time soon. You went to the bathroom and got dressed and prepared for what would be a short sleep until dawn now. You had only now just realized that the smell of blood was still present in the room as you moved into the bathroom. Nova was slowly regaining consciousness just as you turned the shower water on.

A dull light was emitted from the bathroom, it was shining through a gap created as you had hurriedly closed the door behind you, not worrying too much about privacy as you hadn't anticipated that Nova would be waking up anytime soon. "Will?" she moaned out as she tried to force herself out of the bed, taking off her oxygen mask and carrying her IV pole with her as she staggered towards the bathroom. The dull light became brighter as she slowly paced towards it, dazed and confused she reached out her arm at the door with just enough force to push the door back. Nova took further steps into the room as she made her way closer to the shower, it was apparent by now that she was at home and you were in the shower. A grin formed across her face as she knew you were completely unaware she was there, she was going to teach you a lesson you weren't going to forget anytime soon.

Nova pushed her face against the fogged up glass, trying to get a reaction from you, and boy did she get one. As you were reaching out for a bar of soap, something caught the corner of your eye through the relatively dense mist of steam. It was the ghostly white silhouette of a woman, you couldn't quite make it out as the mist had formed on both the inside and out. It was a tall one, so that immediately ruled out Delta but during the process of elimination Nova planted her face cheek first into the glass, with her eye seemingly peering into the shower. You freaked the flick out as Nova was literally the last person you had expected to be there let alone pull a prank on you like this. You fell over and lost your footing on the slippery wet floor and landed onto the ground rather heavily.

Nova's distinct laugh echoed in the room as she opened the shower door and offered a hand to get you up, but you declined not wanting to pull the both of you in. "Nova what are you out of bed?" her attention drew to the toilet, you knew she was making an excuse as she wasn't a particularly good liar especially on the spot. "You're back" you said with a fairly noticeable grin across your face as you wrapped your still soaking wet arms across her back which made a mess of her night gown. Of course you were referring to her emotional state returning. She hurriedly pulled out her IV drip from her arm and began to take off her gown and underwear before getting into the shower with you.

Nova placed her hand firmly against your stomach and slowly patted while moving down to see if you had any adverse reactions. A broad grin formed across her face when she didn't feel any jitters or nervousness before she squealed rather loudly and embraced her arms around your neck. "It's been a while hasn't it" you said with a grin, she nodded eagerly as she proceeded to place her neck against the back of yours before whispering "I missed you" and dug her nose up against your neck affectionately. Nova managed to tucker herself out in the shower, miraculously managing to completely fall asleep in your arms in the shower which you didn't even think was possible with running water over you. You carried her out gently and pat her dry from top to bottom being sure to try to not wake her. As now both of her nightgowns were in one way or another out of commission you got one of your tank tops and put it on her. At first she looked rather awkward and it seemed a little too large for her but for all intents and purposes it was enough. It was still cold out though, so you decided to take the extra precaution and put Shae's parka on her, which you had great difficulty in doing as she wasn't being cooperative with her arms.

As a rather sheepish Shae woke up and stumbled down the hallway to the main bathroom at the end of the hall, she noted that you weren't sitting outside of your bedroom. She tilted her head with a sense of confusion as she had expected you to be in that position as you had been these last few days while Nova locked herself away from you. It was still relatively dark out but the girls were well adapted into seeing at low light conditions through their intensive training, as such lights were relatively rarely used in most situations. Shae teeped into the room and noted that both you and Nova were in it, but didn't detect any thoughts being passed to and from each other or receiving for that matter, either you were both asleep or things were dire in there. Judging from past experiences, Shae decided to go with the cautious approach anyway "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" another motto which she taught her students.

Shae gently caressed the handle of the door and gently pushed at it, just enough to ascertain a clear view of what exactly was inside and the situation. Her nose was bombarded with a powerful and relatively fresh scent that she hadn't smelt in a while, the air was also a lot more humid and warm inside the room than it was out in the corridor. It didn't take her very long to add one and one together and get two as the result, she smiled before quickly closing the door behind her and proceeded down the hall. She was sure to complain to the staff about how cold it was as was chilling her down to the bone in her simple dark toned long sleeve shirt which she would always normally wear underneath her parka, but noted that Nova was still wearing it and she didn't quite have the guts to take it back from her nor take Nova's one from her closet even though they were virtually identical.

The two of you didn't get out of bed until much later in the afternoon, Delta had gone off earlier in the morning to school whereas Shae tended to things at the academy. She was very thankful of both Shae and Delta for their roles in trying to bring her back on her feet, and now that she was feeling much better than before she was sure to thank them tonight at dinner when the family was home. Shae had asked her a very important question during the week, she didn't reply at the time but it was apparent now that she was better that the issue should be pressed with a little more effort. It related to you, and more specifically when and if Nova intended for you to sign up for the Ghost Academy. Nova was sure to not sound forceful, she didn't want to make you think that she was forcing you into the academy but she wanted to press the point to you in such a way which would make it appealing and enticing, even though in reality it was anything but as the pressure would be piled on top of you.

Nova sat across from you at the small table in your room, it was a rather quaint table, nothing too fancy about it and was primarily made of furbished wood, almost giving it a rustic appearance which was in stark contrast to almost all the other furniture present in the entire building, apart from the large and exotic mahogany table in the function area upstairs. The matching seats were awkward on carpet as they would sometimes sink in slightly into the floor, giving a weird impression of padded cushions were placed below the chair as if to respond to added weight making it slightly unsettling. The two of you had selected from the relatively large array of sandwiches and breads available that the staff had prepared, once again much more than either of you or the whole family could down in one sitting, much to your dismay but the staff had assured you that the leftovers were given out to the less fortunate. It had never occurred to you that there weren't any homeless or less fortunate people currently on Korhal.

Nova wasn't very good at lying, she was always to the point and you could sometimes tell if she was holding something from you. As of recent events transpiring you wanted complete transparency between the two of you, you reached out for her hand and placed it gently against your belly, kind of as a sign of trust, that you trusted her completely. She grinned, "That's not what's on my mind at the moment Will, but thanks" you turned your head in slight confusion, unsure if that was genuine or not so you pressed "So what is it then Nova?" you didn't want to teep into her thoughts and feelings as generally it was considered on a need to know basis as a family rule to teep into the mind of a family member, unless of course they openly invited you to.

A more concerned look fell across Nova's face from a more joyous and cheerful one moments earlier. "Shae- I want, we want you to well, ponder the idea of going through the Ghost academy Will" you could tell she was placing a great degree of care with how she worded that sentence. Nova reached her hands out and clasped yours, reaching around the plates while focusing elsewhere in the room, she didn't want to seem as if she was pressing the matter too deeply by locking a gaze onto you. She was expecting a "Maybe" or "I'll think about it" type of a response, definitely not a flat out affirmative response once the shock of what she said had settled in, but your response was surprising to her. "Of course I would Nova!" you said with exclaim, so much so that she asked "What? Really, just like that?" as if she didn't believe you. Her attention drew from the corner of the room rapidly back onto you to a more surprized look. Nova let out a fairly loud squeal of excitement as she wrapped her arms around you over the table.

In reality however, this could potentially stir up a whole slew of controversy as your position would have to be worked for, and your performance would have to be severely scrutinized as not only were your family members marking you, but there would have to be evidence to suggest that no foul play occurred during examinations. Furthermore there also had to be further restrictions on the potential for you to be receiving training outside of normal hours and sessions. It would come with enough issues and risks to outweigh the benefits, but Nova was committed to this and was hoping you would too. This was the happiest you've seen her be in quite a while, she didn't often cry tears of joy if at all for that matter, the last time she did was when you proposed to her a while back which reminded you that you never did quite set a wedding date but it was implied that it would have to be postponed until well, further notice as scheduling never quite synched well with things happening. You could tell that Nova was pretty content with just being engaged though, going the extra step seemed a little excessive for her, it wasn't that she didn't want to be married, it was more of a hassle and an out-of-the-way type of thing.

Notes: Think I intended this chapter to finish more of as a connecting chapter, I spent a few days on this story and in particular towards the end as I just couldn't find a way to end it properly without making a time lapse in towards the end of a chapter which doesn't sit right with me at all. So in the next chapter expect to see it pick off relatively closely to where this one left off at, I'm not too particularly happy now with the idea of making the protagonist a ghost, I might end up making it unfold inside a time lapse so I don't bore you with intricacies of how you would go through it, maybe focus more on the end of the program rather than it's lifespan.

I do intend to keep the theme that Nova is or will be going through PTSD, that she isn't magically cured even though it appears that way in this chapter. It's also here where I'll be explaining some of my back thoughts on how and why things happened the way they happened, as explaining it explicitly didn't quite make sense for me during the story, not to mention it'd ruin it for the people who want depth and grasp concepts through what is shown instead of having things thrown at them.

First thing I'll address is why the protagonist locked up or my explanation anyway as to why it happened when he stared at Nova at the podium towards the start of the chapter. We noted previously that the protagonist seemed to have the innate ability to sense something medically wrong with individuals, seemingly in close proximity as noted with Shae's Meningitis. However, that was when you were awoken did you actually sense the issue, not in his sleep. So, this would be the outcome if he was awake while the sensation was brought on. Furthermore why he was dazed etc, I was trying to give the impression that he was determining the issue or medical diagnosis as to what was happening to Nova, but his brain was so locked into it that it tunnel visioned into seeing and realizing what the presented issue was and finding a solution.

Apart from that the reviews in relation to the dislike of having the protagonist be the reader have been noted, and I do intend to have a solution to this, but it does require me to effectively end the story to an extent as we've kind of delved far enough into it that we can't really work around it (I'd find it weird if I completely now just swapped to third person) but I will for the best part try to make the rest of the story have little less to do with the main protagonist (except when I want to add depth and perspective to a particular scene) and try to have a more top down perspective on the family. Uncertain if this will be passed across into my other story as of yet (That one will be hard to have a top down perspective on so probably not is my current stance on that).

Finally, as always if you have a positive or negative feedback please drop a line by either a review or a PM here.


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